Smokers on campus might have to take their cigarettes outside or in private if an NIU committee proposes a ban on public smoking.

Jon Dalton, vice president for Student Affairs, said NIU’s Internal Facilities Environmental Committee is reviewing a policy concerning the possibility of banning smoking in public.

He said he could not predict when the policy would be completed, but it is a high priority of the committee. He said a Feb. 19 forum on air quality helped dramatize the high level of concern people have about smoking.

Sidney Mittler, biology professor, said he would like to see NIU adopt a policy prohibiting smoking in public places. He said people should either go outdoors or smoke in their private offices.

Mittler said the Blackhawk cafeteria needs a non-smoking policy because having smoking and non-smoking areas does not work since there is no exaust system.

The U.S. Surgeon General’s report for 1986 stated, “simple separation of smokers and non-smokers in a room may reduce but does not eliminate exposure of non-smokers to environmental smoke.”

“How would you like someone to bring a motorcycle into the lunchroom and idle it?” Mittler said. He said both engine exaust and cigarette smoke contain lethal carcinogens.

Mittler said these carcinogens affect different people in different ways, but it takes about 20 years for someone to get cancer from them.

e said he supported a no-smoking policy, which was adopted in Montgomery Hall 15 years ago. He said smoking is only allowed in private offices, not in the halls.

“If people want to smoke in a private office and commit suicide, that’s fine. They can kill themselves in private or outdoors,” Mittler said.

Mittler said NIU needs to adopt a policy because it will prevent people from being killed. “If we don’t make a stand, people are going to die,” he said.

Kenneth Ferraro, sociologist and coordinator of NIU’s gerontology program, said it is important to remember smoking is not just a cosmetic issue, like whether your breath is bad, but it is a health issue.

Ferraro conducted a survey in the fall of 1984, using random telephone samplings of the adult population in Illinois. The survey dealt with smoking in public places.

e said most of the respondents supported some kind of policy against smoking in public.

Ferraro said he did a similar survey in the DeKalb area in the spring of 1986. “Basically it used the same questions and got the same kind of results. About 70 percent to 90 percent of the people surveyed favor having non-smoking areas,” he said.

“I think it’s safe to say Northern will adopt a policy, but will it be a good one? Will they adopt a policy just to appease certain people, or adopt a well-thought-out policy which is sensitive to the needs of both sides?” Ferraro said.

He said the University of Maryland has a policy which he submitted as an example for NIU to examine. “I think Northern needs a policy that’s consistent across campus,” Ferraro said.