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by JUSTIN HERBERGER
News Reporter
Appalachian State University’s Institute for Health and Human Services and the Wellness Center hosted the Great American Smokeout Thursday in Plemmons Student Union.
The event aimed to educate students about the dangers of smoking, as well as Appalachian’s smoking policy.
According to the American Heart Association, there are about 47.1 million smokers in the United States.
The 18-25 age group
is the only group nation-wide to see the smoking rates increase, Kim E.
Carter of the Institute for Health and Human Services said.
“All of the other groups have gone down, but this age group continues to go up as far as smoking rates,” she said.
Smoking among college age students often begins as a social activity, she said.
“You can
still get heart disease and things like that even if you’re only
smoking a little bit a day. The reason that social smoking I think is
especially bad is because that’s how you get addicted,” she said. “A
lot of people get started just by smoking one or two or now and again
or just when they drink.”
She said a misconception a lot of students have is smoking hookah is less harmful than smoking cigarettes.
According
to a World Health Organization advisory, a typical one-hour session of
hookah smoking exposes the user to 100 to 200 times the volume of smoke
inhaled from a single cigarette.
Carter
said it is a common misconception water through which hookah smoke
passes through filters out carbon monoxide, heavy metals and
cancer-causing chemicals (carcinogens).
Douglas
K. Dugger, patrol commander of the ASU Police, manned a contact table
to answer student’s questions about the on-campus smoking policy, which
restricts smoking within 50 feet of all buildings.
He said
when officers see a person in violation of the smoking policy, they
explain the policy and record the person’s name in a database. Future
violations by the same person result in the issuance of a state
citation costing $150 (includes a $25 fine and $125 court costs).
Senior
health management major Lauren M. Yacobi informed students about the
health benefits of not smoking, as well as ways to stop.
She said the volunteers had received “a good reaction from the people that come by to the table.”
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