Despite health risks, new policy tolerates student smoking outside Brookline High
Smoking may be anathema to school health education, but students can light up close to the Brookline High School campus this year under a new policy that grants smokers a spot across from the school’s front doors and gymnasium.
The reasoning behind the policy is to keep smoking out in the open, and not have teachers tracking down smokers in school bathrooms and hallways, said the high school’s headmaster, Bob Weintraub.
“The schools banning smoking entirely have to allocate significant human resources to inside or outside the school, wherever smoking takes place,” said Weintraub, later noting that some schools have teachers monitoring bathrooms for smokers.
“To me, I’d rather have the teachers at Brookline High School working on more productive activities,” said Weintraub.
But critics of the policy said it’s contrary to years of teaching students about the risks of smoking.
“It’s a very mixed message [to students]. We’d hope that school systems would spend all their efforts highlighting the dangers of smoking, and not tolerate any opportunity to smoke,” said Marc Hymovitz, director of government outreach for the American Cancer Society in Boston, who noted that no one under age 18 can legally buy cigarettes in Massachusetts.
Under the new policy, the school encourages students who smoke to do so on the sidewalk at the corner of Greenough Street and Davis Avenue.
In the school’s handbook, the spot is officially “off campus,” but the sidewalk is flanked on one side by the school’s ballfield, and faces the main entrances to the gym and high school building. Greenough Street is also closed to vehicle traffic during the day to make it easier for students to come and go between classes.
Mary Minott, the high school’s coordinator of substance abuse prevention, said three school staffers go out to any student smokers and let them know about the assistance programs that are available. She said that anecdotally, there appear to be fewer smokers at the school than in the past since the policy began with the new school year.
“It’s a health problem. We don’t try to turn it into [an issue of] ‘You’re a bad person because you have an addiction,’” said Minott.
The school can’t stop students who smoke on the public sidewalk at the corner of Tappan and Greenough streets, but officials ask students to move out of the way, she said.
Minott said this policy doesn’t apply to adults smoking on the sidewalk.
While the school can’t prevent freshmen from smoking on public property, the school changed its “open campus” policy to prevent first-semester freshmen from leaving school grounds. Older students, and second-semester freshmen with parental consent, can leave school grounds during the day.
The school’s policy bans smoking on official school property, including the Cypress Street playing field. The sidewalk along the field is not school-controlled property.
The school developed the policy with the input of about 30 juniors and seniors, along with substance abuse prevention staff, in response to a forum hosted last year with Brookline Coalition Against Substance Abuse.
But that policy raised the ire of some anti-smoking advocates, who said the measure is contrary to what’s proven to reduce smoking rates among teens.
Danny McGoldrick, vice president of research for the Washington, D.C.-based Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said the Brookline policy contradicts anti-smoking efforts.
“Kids spot hypocrisy a mile away,” said McGoldrick, who later added, “If you carve out an area that is OK to smoke, you’re contradicting your message in other venues.”
He said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health agencies encourage a single message on the risks of smoking that is directed to young people.
“It’s not a normal behavior. It kills half of those who do it in their lifetime,” said McGoldrick of smoking.
Hymovitz, of the American Cancer Society in Boston, criticized the policy for “making it easier and more tolerable” to smoke.
“It’s counter to all of the proven tobacco control efforts over the past several years, and it plays into the hands of the tobacco industry” because they are looking for young smokers, said Hymovitz.
He said the state’s 2004 ban on workplace smoking was successful by making it harder for people to smoke, and gave them an incentive to quit. He said educational efforts to highlight the dangers of smoking, smoking bans in schools and higher taxes on cigarettes have had a similar effect on youth smoking figures.
“It seems like a backwards policy to make it easier for children to smoke,” said Hymovitz.
According to a study of tobacco use among young people conducted by the state departments of public health and K-12 education, which reviewed data from 1993 through 2009, about 82 percent of adult smokers in Massachusetts began smoking before age 19.
Statewide, about 17 percent of high schoolers in 2009 had used a tobacco product within the previous 30 days of taking a tobacco use survey, according to the report.
However, the report showed tobacco use statewide was higher among older high schoolers: in 2009, about 11 percent of freshmen smoke, and by senior year, that figure increased to 21 percent.
Cigarette smoking causes about 8,000 deaths each year in Massachusetts, according to the report. Officials also worry that smoking at a young age increases the chances of picking up riskier addictions such as drugs later in life.
In Brookline, about 9 percent of high schoolers — roughly 170 students — smoked within 30 days of the most recent youth risk survey the school conducted, according to Weintraub.
“I have an attitude you don’t want to push kids away from the school … our job is to embrace a whole range of kids,” said Weintraub.
Alan Balsam, the town’s health director, acknowledged that the school’s new smoking policy isn’t a “perfect message,” but regards it as a step forward in grappling with student smoking and protecting others from the dangers of smoking.
The school used to ban smoking, and students would gather on nearby public property, he said. The new policy was meant to eliminate that “gauntlet” of smokers that nonsmokers had to pass through every day to get to school.
“Part of this is recognizing that there are kids who smoke, and we want to protect the kids who don’t smoke” from secondhand smoking risks, said Balsam.
“We’re monitoring the tobacco use among youngsters, and I’m feeling pretty good” about those rates when compared to other communities, said Balsam.
The TAB attempted to speak to a representative with the state Department of Public Health’s Tobacco Control Program, but a spokeswoman would only accept written questions in advance from the TAB via e-mail. She declined to make a representative available over the phone.
While Brookline allows students to smoke across the street from the school, other school districts continue to frown on any tobacco use near a school.
In Newton, a city ordinance prohibits smoking within 300 yards of the Newton North High School building, with penalties for repeat offenses, including fines of up to $200 and smoking cessation classes.
Waltham High School’s citywide ban on tobacco products on school property includes harsher punishments. For a first offense, a student will be slapped with an overnight suspension from school, a meeting with the principal before returning to classes and attendance at two tobacco education classes.
Watertown High School students caught smoking on school grounds face suspension, while Wellesley High School bans all tobacco products from school property.
At Brookline High School, during a warm early afternoon last week, dozens of students lingered around the athletic field in front of the school, though none appeared to be smoking. Students who spoke with the TAB were mixed on the new policy, but generally agreed with allowing students the option to smoke on campus.
“It makes sense — it stops the freshmen from smoking,” said Jesse Schneider, a junior who said he smokes.
He thought the policy was inconvenient; it forces students under shade trees in nice weather, and smokers can’t spread out at all. He was skeptical about whether it would encourage smokers to quit.
“It’s really not having an effect on me,” Schneider said.
Senior Myles Grimes, who said he smokes, agreed with the policy and said school officials are taking the new policy seriously.
“They’re taking it offensively if we do smoke” in other areas, he said.
“It’s understandable, but it’s something that shouldn’t be limited — we’re not doing drugs,” said Tyrone Nunez, a junior who smokes. He later noted that cutting down on smoking at the school doesn’t mean students have kicked the habit.
“It does help [students] to smoke less, but it doesn’t stop smoking,” he said.
Two other seniors, Marni Musmon and Alex Sanchez, said the policy was better than an outright smoking ban. Neither smoke, they said.
“I think it’s fair. A lot of schools don’t allow smoking at all,” said Musmon.
“And if you did, kids would find a way” to smoke, said Sanchez.
“I hate it, it sucks … people don’t really like it, said Gabriel Toledo, a junior at Brookline High School.
Toledo, a smoker who said the school’s previous smoking policy was better because it gave smokers more freedom of movement, said the policy was made to keep students away from where younger kids and parents had to walk.
While the measure has limited where smokers can light up, the school hasn’t stopped student smoking, either.
“They’re letting us smoke here,” said Toledo. “It’s a plus.”
One high school student agreed to be interviewed, and told a reporter he was a smoker. When asked for his name, he declined, and said he said his mother might learn that he smokes if he gave his name to the paper.
