Students, such as electrical engineering freshman Miguel Gonzalez, said it is good that cigarettes, vapes and e-cigarettes are banned on the UTRGV campuses because they can affect people’s health.
“I don’t vape because I never really found it, like, to be compelling to me and growing up around my family they were,
I guess, they pushed this moral value, like, to not smoke,” Gonzalez said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recorded more than 1,200 lung injury cases associated with e-cigarettes or vaping in 49 states, and 26 deaths have been confirmed as of Oct. 8, according to its website.
Of the reported cases, about 70% are male and 80% are under 35 years old, 15% are under 18 years old and 21% are 18 to 20 years old, according to the CDC’s website.
“#UTRGV has been proud to be Tobacco-Free since 2015, which includes bans on vaping and e-cigarettes and is part of the UT System’s Eliminate Tobacco Use Initiative,” according to a UTRGV Facebook post dated Oct. 3.
According to a tweet from the UT System, all 14 institutions have been tobacco-, vaping- and e-cigarette-free as of June 2017.
“At the time, the UT System was the first public university system in Texas to become fully tobacco free,” the tweet said.
In a March 7, 2017, news release, the UT System stated the goal of banning tobacco is to establish a healthier environment for students, faculty, staff, patients and visitors and to recognize that tobacco use is a preventable cause of premature death and diseases.
“More than 228,000 students and 100,000 faculty and staff learn and work on UT System campuses,” the news release states. “Studies show that prohibiting tobacco use in the workplace helps significantly reduce the number of smokers and the amount of smoking done by those who continue to smoke. Tobacco prevention programs also are effective deterrents, which is important because approximately 90 percent of daily smokers report they first used cigarettes before they were 19 years of age.”
Dr. Cristel Escalona, medical director of Student Health and Wellness and an assistant clinical professor for the Department of Pediatrics at the UTRGV School of Medicine, said there is a difference between vapes and cigarettes.
“So, the problem with the vaping is that it is not regulated. … There’s limits to exactly what they can put in cigarettes, but unfortunately, with vaping, they’re not regulated,” Escalona said in an interview with The Rider last Thursday.
She also said the chemicals from vapes can cause burns in the lungs.
“When they look at the lungs, like, under a microscope, it looks like they’ve been burned by a chemical and the reason why is because [vapes] are not regulated,” Escalona said. “People can put whatever the heck they want in them. They’ve even been putting, like, I think it was vitamin E, which, you know, you can put it on top of your skin and it doesn’t do damage, but if you inhale it into your lungs, it burns your lungs.”
She said if students want to quit smoking, they can utilize the Tobacco Cessation program or can make an appointment at Student Health Services for an evaluation.
One of the resources offered by the Tobacco Cessation is the Collegiate Recovery Program, which “are non-clinical services to help students work through the process of recovery from addictive behaviors such as substance abuse,” according to its website.
For more information about the Tobacco Cessation program, visit www.utrgv.edu/hr/wellness/tobacco-cessation/index.htm.
Although Gonzalez believes a campus vaping ban is a good idea, he does not think a general ban on vapes is necessary.
“I don’t think vaping should be, like, banned or whatever they’re trying to do,” he said. “I just think it should be left alone. As of right now, we don’t know what the long-term effect of vaping is, but time will only tell. For right now, it seems as though vaping is more of a healthier alternative than to smoke cigarettes.”
In an Oct. 1 news release, Texas A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp said society is facing a serious health risk in regard to vaping and the use of electronic cigarettes.
“I do not want to take any unnecessary chances with the health of our students, faculty and staff,” Sharp said in the news release. “To that end, I am directing the presidents of each of the 11 universities and the directors of the eight state agencies within the Texas A&M University System to ban the use of e-cigarettes and vaping as soon as possible.”
He also said smoking is banned in most places in the System, but banning vaping is necessary.
“This health threat is serious enough that I want to see the ban include every building, outside space, parking lot, garage and laboratory within the Texas A&M System,” Sharp said. “The ban also should extend to every facility of our $950 million research enterprise and all System properties in the 250 Texas counties in which the Texas A&M System has a presence.”
