Ban on Student Smoking Areas Passes Senate

The state Senate on Thursday narrowly approved a bill that would ban student smoking areas on high school campuses and would allow administrators to suspend or expel students found in possession of tobacco products.

The measure was returned to the Assembly on a 21-8 vote for concurrence in Senate amendments. The 21 yes votes represented a bare majority in the 40-member chamber.

“Allowing students to smoke on campuses because students smoke . . . makes about as much sense as providing cocktail lounges on school campuses because kids drink,” asserted Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach), Senate manager of the bill by Assemblyman William J. Filante (R-Greenbrae).

The measure would repeal a 1978 law that gave school districts permission to set aside smoking areas for students and allow possession of tobacco products such as cigarettes.

Supporters of the Filante measure contended that allowing students to use and possess tobacco would defeat the purpose of programs designed to teach them about the hazards of smoking and conflict with another law that makes it illegal to sell cigarettes or tobacco products to minors.

“That being the case, on what basis of morality can the schools set up a designated place for use of a product that is illegal for (students) to receive?” asked Sen. Newton R. Russell (R-Glendale).

“I think we all recognize that since we passed the bill to allow smoking on campuses that the scientific evidence is overwhelming that smoking is one of the most hazardous things a person can do to their own health,” he said.

“I agree there is a paradox in the law,” said Sen. Gary K. Hart (D-Santa Barbara). “But reality is (that) this bill is not necessarily going to improve matters. . . . The issue is are they going to continue in a fashion that is supervised by the school, or are they going to continue on the QT?”

Other opponents of the bill argued that banning tobacco use on campuses would not stop students from smoking and would once again send smoking students into lavatories where they will offend non-smoking pupils.

Sen. Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward), a former teacher who opposed the measure, called the proposal an “unenforceable law” that would once again subject teachers to the “humiliation of being assigned bathroom supervision duty.”

Sen. James W. Nielsen (R-Woodland) insisted that “what we do by designating smoking areas is that we condone smoking--in a manner of speaking . . . condone drugs.”