GORHAM – A group of University Southern Maine students are rallying with hopes a no-tobacco policy on the three campuses set to take effect in a month goes up in smoke.

On the Gorham campus, smoking is now allowed at only two designated areas with a butt bucket and a bench.

Jordana Avital, a freshman and a smoker, heads up the student group calling itself Occupy Butt Bench, which hopes to overturn the coming tobacco ban.

Judie O’Malley, a spokeswoman for the university, said the tobacco ban takes effect Jan. 1. It follows similar bans at the University of Maine in Orono and the campus at Farmington, according to O’Malley.

The University of Southern Maine’s tobacco-free policy would prohibit smoking and chewing tobacco. Even e-cigarettes that simulate smoking tobacco will be banned.

“That’s the most ridiculous thing,” Avital said.

The Gorham campus is home to 1,158 students living in dorms, according to university statistics. The tobacco ban means students can’t smoke on the property where they live.

“We’re a community here,” Avital said.

“This is home,” Adriana Worthing, a senior and a smoker, said about students living on campus. “I don’t think it’s fair.”

So, Occupy Butt Bench is planning an all-day protest beginning at 11:30 a.m. on Monday, Dec. 3, on the Gorham campus near the home of the university president, Theodora Kalikow. At 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 5, Occupy Butt Bench will take a stand on the Portland campus.

The ban is being implemented following university polls.

“The professional staff senate, the classified staff senate and the faculty senate all voted to support the tobacco ban,” O’Malley said. “The student senate voted to not support it.”

According to information posted on the university’s website, the university is implementing the tobacco-free policy “to provide a safe and healthy environment. Research shows that tobacco use in general, in addition to the effects of secondhand smoke, constitutes a significant health hazard.”

The Occupy Butt Bench group advocates adding designated smoking areas and relocating the two present ones further away from pathways and buildings.

“We want a compromise,” Worthing said. “I depend on them (cigarettes) when I’m in a high stress situation,” such as before taking exams.

A university professor, Wendy Chapkis, also doesn’t agree with the ban.

“My scholarship is in the area of contemporary drug policy. Strategies of prohibition do not stop drug use, but rather too often increase the harms associated with it. Harm reduction strategies are more effective,” Chapkis said. “In addition, I worry about policies that suggest that the only way to protect the rights of the majority (in this case, non-smokers) is to prohibit behaviors engaged in by a minority. I think there is a way to balance the rights of smokers and non-smokers at USM.”

Avital also said there are no signs on the Gorham campus indicating where smoking is permitted now. Occupy Butt Bench members pick up cigarette butts flicked away in campus locations where smoking is already prohibited .

The university has locations in Portland, Lewiston and Gorham, with a total enrollment of 9,385. The ban on all tobacco products impacts faculty, staff, students and even visitors attending cultural and sporting events at the university.

Occupy Butt Bench has seven core members and is, Worthing said, reaching out to increase numbers.

Avital plans to take the group’s plea to the student senate on Friday, Nov. 30.

With time vaporizing as the ban nears, Occupy Butt Bench is circulating a petition opposing the ban. Early this week, it had 500 signatures. Avital has a goal of submitting a petition bearing1,000 names to be handed to the student senate.

Members of Occupy Butt Bench are designing posters and T-shirts with hand-printed slogans. Maria Kondax, a freshman who doesn’t smoke, is a member of the group. Kondax on Monday had a T-shirt printed that said, “You’re not my nanny.”

In a message blitz, students planned to display posters at the two protests and hold umbrellas with messages so they can be read from upper floors of buildings.

“I feel this ban is imposing too much,” Kondax said.

Cory Flanagan, a freshman, just recently quit smoking but is opposed to the ban.

“I believe it’s against peoples’ rights as citizens,” Flanagan said.

“When is the last time a prohibition actually worked?” asked Josh Thornberg, a freshman and a smoker.

Kondax, citing a case in the past of a female student who was accosted, said it could be dangerous for women to leave campus late at night to smoke.

Worthing and Kondax don’t believe the tobacco ban will work. They believe students will light up anyway.

Penalties for violators of the policy seem vague. The university website states that compliance is expected. “Initial enforcement will involve education, awareness, interventions and referrals for those seeking smoking/tobacco cessation supports. As with all USM policies, progressive disciplinary procedures will then be used as necessary and appropriate for violations.”

Cigarettes are not sold on the Gorham campus. So students buy tobacco products in downtown Gorham stores like 7 Eleven or Rite Aid.

Students see other common products as health concerns in society. In a printed message Kondax presented at a recent speak-out forum on campus, she cited dangers from frying pans, barbecue grills, cell phones and microwaves. She asked, “Will a smoking ban really make life healthier? I guess so – as long as you don’t talk on a cellular telephone, cook, fuel your vehicle or drink a sugary beverage.”

Occupy Butt Bench members wondered about the rationale for banning tobacco when alcohol is allowed in some dorms.

“I’m 21 and I can have a beer in my room,” Worthing said.

Eric Gooldrup, a freshman but not a member of Occupy Butt Bench, was smoking Monday in the designated area near Robie-Andrews Hall on the Gorham campus.

“I’m against it,” Gooldrup said about the ban.

Worthing sometimes does homework in the designated smoking area, and Flanagan plays his guitar there. It’s a student social gathering place.

“I met all my friends at the butt bench,” Thornberg said.

Adriana Worthing, a University of Southern Maine senior, is looking for a compromise on the looming tobacco ban on the Gorham campus.    
Occupy Butt Bench members at the Gorham campus of the University of Southern Maine oppose a coming tobacco ban. Pictured are, from left, Adriana Worthing, Jordana Avital, Maria Kondax, Cory Flanagan and Josh Thornberg.