AFTER FINISHING all my classes, I am out of the building with a light heart. However, some unpleasant smell makes me distort my face. It? cigarette smoke! How much on earth do Yonseians are now smoking and what is needed to solve this problem?" (Kim OO, Soph., Dept. of History)
"Smoking is one of the rights that people can enjoy. Also, cigarette is a favorite product that the government sells to the people for collecting the huge amounts of taxes. So, anyone, even the government cannot restrict my rights to smoke freely!" (Park OO, Jr., Dept. of  Bus. Admin.)

We can see that there are acute relations between smoking and non-smoking students through these interviews. Smoking has brought serious conflict between smokers and non-smokers for a long time. To unravel the complicated conflict, The Yonsei Annals surveyed Yonseians' thoughts about smoking on May 4 and 6. (Male: 560, Female: 441)

Yonseians' smoking

Aren't you curious about how many Yonseians are smoker? For the question Do you smoke?, 12.9% of students said "Yes" while the other 86.8% said "No". About 19% of men and 5% of women were smokers. Additionally, 130 smokers were made of 16.9% women and 81.5% men. According to Jacky Lee (General Manager, Korean Association of Smoking and Health), the number of people who firstly have an experience on something is rather a few. "When the rate of people's first smoking age appears to be highest among 20-24 year old. Hence, it is quite natural that the Yonseians around 20-24 show a low rate of smoking. Also, Hong Sung-yong (Department Manager, Korea Smokers' Protection Association) pointed out that Yonseians relatively don't smoke compared with the adult's rate of smoking which is around 30%.

Going into more specific, we inquired several basic questions only to smoking Yonseians. As a first question, we asked When did you start smoking? 32.3% of smoking Yonseians started smoking "While at high school," followed by "While at university" (25.3%). Lee stated that the time Yonseians started smoking appears to be rather later than any other university students. "The reason that Yonseians' first smoking ages were later than others is they were relatively high in the degree of schoolwork accomplishment."

Then why did Yonseians start smoking? 41.5% of smokers said "to get rid of stress" and 24.6% were found to have started smoking "Out of curiosity." Related to the top answer, Lee explained that this is clear evidence that people have little understanding of smoking. "Cigarettes have toxicity. Accordingly, when people try to stop smoking, they get stress more than the time when they don? smoke."

However, we could find smokers of Yonsei are not heavy smokers with the question, How many cigarettes do Yonseians smoke in a day? 52% of smoking students were light smokers who smoked less than 10 cigarettes and 48% answered they smoke more than a half of a pack of cigarettes for a day. As a sequence of searching for the rate by sex, 73% of female smokers used less than 10 cigarettes compared with 47% of male smokers. Lee mentioned, "Whether people consume a cigarette or ten cigarettes a day, they are samely called 'smoker' who are addicted to cigarettes. Actually, it is not much better for health even if one lessens quantity of cigarettes."

Nonsmoking area

Have you heard about "Law for Promoting Nation's Health?" It clarifies non-smoking area and presents the standard of rules. According to the law, in university, classrooms, rest rooms, halls, dining halls and conference halls are nonsmoking areas except school buildings. However, in result of searching where nonsmoking district is, it turns out not to exist any university regulations related to it. Some buildings are indicative of no smoking area but others are totally defenseless about it. This non-standardized administration is giving rise to complications among students. For solving this problem, we checked first where smokers are smoking in Yonsei Univ. "Campus, far away from the school building" (53%) was ranked first and "in the doorway and near from it" (30%) was the second. Lee said, "Entrance of the building is  road for passage for many people. If smokers who smoke there are concerned about non-smokers' damage from cigarette smoke, it will be better for both of them." Hong said, "Whereas there is smoking area in Korea Univ. and SungKunKwan Univ., Yonsei Univ. is thoroughly exclusive of establishing smoking area. If there is nonsmoking area, there must be smoking area for smokers."

To the following, we asked What range should be nonsmoking area in Yonsei Univ. when stipulating it? Majority of Yonseians chose "all the buildings" (41%) and "all the buildings and around them" was selected by 20% of respondents. Also, 17% of students thought "throughout all the Campus," smoking shouldn't be allowed. Lee explained, "The fact that considerable numbers of students picked 'throughout all the campus' means they consider cigarettes are things which have to be kept away from people for staying healthy."

Women and smoking

Then how is women's smoking guaranteed in our society? Even if recognition of the equality of the sexes is spread all over the country more than before, women, minority among smokers seem to be still trapped in the shade we made with distorted view. When asked What do you think of women's smoking?, 48% of total respondents were negative whereas only 8% were positive. 40% stood in the middle of the branch road. Hong said, "Though many people are still negative toward women's smoking, it is encouraging that 40% selected the answer 'so so', not 'negative'. It means students are more conscious about equality of the sexes than before." Additionally, among people who picked "positive", women took up 56% and only 6% of male students showed a positive view toward women's smoking.  Lee criticized, "Smoking women assert the equality of sexes when smoking, however, when they need to stop smoking, actually they cannot go to any clinic center to quit smoking because of others' biased eyes. Isn't it contradictory? Their demand and attitude need to be accorded."

Then Why are some people negative about women's smoking? 43% of Yonseians regarded that women's smoking have bad influence on the embryo. 16% of respondents showed a bad impression toward women's smoking "because of social prejudice" and 12% answered they are still not used to it. In addition, there were numerous similar extra answers: "Regardless of the sex, I am negative on smoking." It proves many people are negative to SMOKING itself, no matter what is the sex of the smoker.

Relation between the rate of smoker & the price of cigarettes

On Dec. 30, 2004, government increased the price of cigarettes by ￦500. After increasing the price, was it affective to reduce the rate of smoking? To find the result of that policy, the Annals asked smokers, Was there any change in your amount of cigarette consumption after an increase in the price of cigarette? 76% of smoking Yonseians were found to be "not changed" in quantity of smoking. Yonseians who changed the amount of cigarette consumption after the increase were 27% (17% - "Reduced the amount of cigarettes," 10%-"Increased the amount of cigarettes). As Lee said, government notified the legislation that includes "raising the price of cigarette to ￦500 more since July." Through the survey, we could find that 61% of respondents were for it while the other 23%against it. Hong says, "It is just the opposite to the survey conducted on Dec. 30, 2004 which showed that 51% disapproved and 36% approved. I think this is because non smokers took up much higher rate in Survey of Annals than the former survey."

If so, when ￦500 is really added to the present price of cigarette, what are Yonseians going to do? 16% of smokers answered they will STOP SMOKING. Hong explained that it is a remarkably high numerical value compared to smoking rate after the increase of price of cigarette by ￦1000, 3-7%. Another 28% said they would be affected by this policy reducing the amount of cigarette consumption. To this result, Lee says, "I thought the width of increase was too small before. When additional ￦500 is raised this July, I expect the rate of smoking will show more radical change." However, almost half of the smoking Yonseians (42%) showed a firm attitude answering, "I will maintain the amount of cigarette consumption." Lee mentioned, "When 20s, people cannot feel any pain from smoking. No sooner had they entered 40-50s, they become sensible to the harm caused by smoking." Hong added, "Most smokers quit smoking for their health. Money really does not matter to smokers. Government is trying to increase the price for getting more taxes from it under the pretext of reducing the rate of smoking."

Prohibition of smoking

In Bhutan, located East Himalayas, exports, imports and selling of cigarettes are banned for the first time in the world since Nov. 17, 2004. What do you think about this? Different from the output for the former question related to the ￦500 increase to the price of cigarettes (approve: 61%, disapprove: 23%), 63% were opposed to this policy. "Using favorite item is one's freedom and it must not be infringed" was main reason selected by 72% of opponents and 15% expected that "It will only cause secret dealings of cigarettes." On the other hand, a few percentage of Yonseians (19%) answered "I approve it." The primary answer was "It will help people promote their health" picked by 29% of supporters and 26% considered cigarette as a kind of a drug and it should be prohibited. "According to the U.S, cigarettes are specified as a drug. However, in Korea, cigarettes are just prescribed for harmful medicines in the 'law for protecting youth'. Additionally, government is still selling it and getting taxes from it whereas they advocate no smoking. It straightforwardly shows its dualism."

Though cigarette is surely a bad material for our health and everyone knows it, it is really hard to lower the rate of smoking. Then What is the best way to reduce the rate of smokers? 42.1% selected "Remove the generous atmosphere about smoking by enhancing the education" and 25% answered "Enlarge the increase of cigarette prices." Lee said "Price policy and education about no smoking have to be conducted together. Also, we have to lead the teenagers who have short experience of smoking to non-smokers by lowering the degree of access to cigarettes."

Conclusion

Now we've searched the various ideas on smoking from Yonseians. From individual experience to national policy, it could be impossible for us to deal with all these big problems. However, there are no other problems that cause conflict as much as "SMOKING" among people and it needs to have some measures as soon as possible. Setting aside health problems, for smokers, they insist on right of smoking and for non smokers, they asserted the right of protecting themselves from cigarette smoke. How can these two positions reach an agreement? Designating smoking areas for smokers is the first step toward the solution of this problem and THERE CANNOT BE ANY EXCEPTION AT YONSEI UNIV. However, for the most part, considering each other's position is the best way. Smokers should be careful not to harm non smokers as much as possible and non smokers need to respect smokers' right of smoking to some degree.