After years of planning, a campus-wide tobacco ban will take effect Thursday.
Under the new policy, no smoking, chewing tobacco or other use of the substance will be permitted on any of ASU's campuses.
The policy is based on education, not punishment, said Justin Zeien, a member of the Health and Counseling Student Action Committee.
"It's a non-confrontational way to enforce the policy," he said.
Zeien, a biochemistry junior, and other members of HCSAC have been developing an educational approach to prevent students from smoking on campus. They held an informational session with the Tempe Undergraduate Student Government and other campus leaders in the spring to train them in this approach, and the group plans to do more this semester.
HCSAC has been trying to empower students to speak up about smoking, Zeien said.
"We can't be everywhere all the time, and frankly we don't want to be the police of this policy," he said.
The group developed an approach called FLAME: Friendly approach, Let the person know about the ASU tobacco-free policy, Advise the person on campus quit resources, Make the request that they not use tobacco products on campus and Express gratitude.
They scripted a dramatized video of this approach with administration officials.
Approximately 800 other colleges and universities, including the 10 schools in the Maricopa Community College District, have similar tobacco-free policies, according to an October 2012 report from the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation.
Under ASU's previous policy, smoking was prohibited inside campus buildings or within 25 feet of any entrance. The new policy allows no smoking anywhere on campus property.
Some student groups, like Young Americans for Liberty, are opposed to the ban and have demonstrated since it was first announced this past fall. President Jacob Pritchett, a political science sophomore, said the new policy limits individual rights.
"We generally think people should be allowed to make their own choices," he said. "This isn't only a ban on smoking, it's a ban on all tobacco."
He added that the lack of enforcement other than educational intervention makes it unlikely that the ban will have an effect.
"It's kind of just for show," Pritchett said. "They're not really going around with any enforcement."
The educational approach is in a trial period, Zeien said, and if it doesn't work, it is possible that ASU could take further measures to enforce the new policy.
"Hopefully it works, because I'd hate to see people get fined for something that's really hard to quit," he said.
Arguments about the policy curtailing someone's right to smoke aren't able to be backed up, Zeien said.
"We're really not telling you you can't smoke; we're just telling you where you can't smoke," he said. "Smoking isn't a right; it's a privilege, and if your privilege to smoke is interfering with someone else's right to breathe clean air, I see that as a problem. This has been about the non-smokers."
The push to a completely smoke-free campus, instead of designated smoking areas as tried at other universities, resulted from ASU's desire to make its campuses more healthy, spokeswoman Sharon Keeler said.
Developing the program took time, she said. ASU's student governments voted for the policy several years ago, but the time it took to gain approval from other sections of the school meant that most students who were involved with the decision had graduated by the time ASU announced the new policy.
"ASU has a shared governance system," she said. "The students started the process, but the administration and faculty both had to approve it. The process is slow, but it gets all governance groups to weigh in."
ASU has resources available for students looking to learn more about the policy or quit smoking online at eoss.asu.edu/tobaccofree.
Reach the managing editor at julia.shumway@asu.edu or follow @JMShumway on Twitter.
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