Student smokers air the reasons they smoke

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Smoking is common on Oberlin's campus these days and students purchase cigarettes from many town retailers, but apparently, everyone feels a little guilty.

"We do sell an awful lot," a Gibson's employee said about the amount of cigarettes Gibsons sells to students.

"I think we're getting ready to remove the vending machine," Annie's New York Pizza employee Raymond Lance said with guilt in his voice about the cigarettes sold there.

"Too many little kids come in. When you're working, it's hard to watch," Lance said.

A lot of Oberlin students smoke. Although only 76 of hundreds of on-campus students designated themselves as smokers on housing forms last year, hundreds actually smoke.

Administrators said they are perplexed as to why the numbers are so great.

"I am personally quite surprised at the seemingly high level of smoking among entering students, and I don't have any explanation for it," Assistant to the President Diana Roose said.

It may not be a unique situation. Many students feel Oberlin is no different from other colleges with regards to its number of smokers. "I went to SUNY-Albany and obviously more people went there, but I think the ratio of smokers is about the same," sophomore Jason Lachick said.

"It's the general community in schools like us and the people that they attract," sophomore Dana Adipietro said.

Smokers come to Oberlin as smokers. Most students who smoke start in high school and just stick with it. "When I came here I said I wasn't going to smoke and then I just said, 'oh well,'" Adipietro said.

Every smoker has a different story as to why he or she started smoking in the first place. For some it was a step down from harder drugs; for others it was their first stab at rebellion.

"I started smoking pot before cigarettes. One day I had a cigarette because there was no more pot left. My friend bought me a box of Cuban cigarettes. Then I went to cloves and then to cigarettes," Lachick said.

Lachick smokes about five cigarettes per day. "I don't smoke much. I can quit and not get the shakes," he said.

Another student said the legality of cigarettes was a draw to people who have been addicted to other drugs.

"I've been to AA meetings and a lot of people in AA smoke. I had a friend in AA. She was quiting all sorts of things. Smoking was O.K. for her," first year Rachel Anderson said. "I'm not sure how I feel about that."

Administrators and staff like to speculate that a certain type of person is drawn to smoking. Some students agree.

"They market to the Oberlin type of person," sophomore Slava Faybysh said. "When you're younger you think you're being sophisticated," Faybysh's friend sophomore Sascha Puritz said.

Puritz started smoking in high school and said he would find it difficult to stop smoking at Oberlin because he sees so much smoking everywhere. Smokers were moved outdoors when most buildings were designated non-smoking in 1994.

In the process, they have become more visible to non-smokers. Former smokers get annoyed at the slightest smell of smoke, and current smokers turn their backs on the desires of others in order to enjoy the small taste of rebelious spirit that remains legal for them.

"I think the number of smokers is surprising, especially when we have the assumption that many of our students are health conscious and concerned about the environment," Associate Dean of Students Bill Stackman said. "It is an environmental issue when you think of the secondary concern of cigarette butts on the ground."

The new smoking filter receptacles are supposed to cure the litter problem around Mudd ramp and King, but Lachick said he only uses them if they are in the immediate vicinity.

"I use them if I'm near 'em. Otherwise I just flick 'em," Lackick said.

The cost of supporting a smoking habit annoys some students but doesn't seem to deter them from smoking. "It costs my friend about three dollars a day. She doesn't have a lot of money. That's out of her pay check and child support," Anderson said.

Adipietro spends about 10 dollars per week on her cigarettes. "It tends to be a problem because I don't have any money. I go to Amoco because it's the cheapest, but I go to Gibsons if I'm stuck," she said.

The number of smokers hasn't gone unnoticed by prospective students. "When we were standing by one of the dorms we noticed that everyone who came outside was smoking," Julia MacKesson, a prospective student from St. Louis, said.

She is not unused to the problem. "At my high school, you can't go in the bathrooms. It stinks and you can't breath near it. Oxygen is nice," she said.

Taking a breather: Junior Ted Carleton indulges outside Stevenson Dining Hall. (photo by James Cochran)
What a drag: Sophomores Joe Bonn and Josh Walker take a study break to smoke by Mudd ramp, where smoking is prohibited by College policy. (photo by James Cochran)

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