For the past few weeks, a proposal has been floating around administration, faculty and student leaders that could drastically change the landscape of Saint Louis University. The proposal is a comprehensive ban on the use of tobacco on SLU’s campus. Under this plan, smoking cigarettes, cigars, pipes, hookah, etc. will be prohibited across the SLU campus. Faculty Senate received a presentation of its proposal two weeks ago and SGA received a similar presentation just yesterday.

The plan is the brainchild of the Dean of Public Health, Edwin Trevathan, and the ban is part of a broader plan to discourage the use of tobacco by SLU students, faculty and staff. This plan includes tobacco-cessation programs that will be available to students, faculty and staff that wish to stop using tobacco at a reduced price or even free.

It is the hope of Dean Trevathan that the final draft of the tobacco free program will be implemented on Jan. 1, 2014. However, before Dean Trevathan or the rest of the administration intends to implement this bold plan so quickly, there needs to be a serious and thoughtful discussion of the pitfalls of this plan.

The Editorial Board’s first concern is with the rapidity of the plan’s implementation. The first member of the Editorial Board to hear about this plan only found out about three weeks ago. Surely such a colossal change to the university would be discussed in greater length with all of the interested bodies of the university.

The second concern we have is the grandeur of the plan; it is all encompassing. Rather than just banning smoking on campus, which can damage the health of others through second-hand smoke, the plan intends to ban chewing tobacco, which is not harmful to anyone other than the person willfully choosing to do it. The plan also proposes to prohibit smoking in one’s own car while on SLU’s campus, which would also not harm anyone else. There is also another concern that smokers would crowd the streets around campus, creating lanes of smoke that people must walk through. Surely that’s better than the occasional whiff of smoke on West Pine? Members of the Editorial Board have also proposed the use of designated zones where people can smoke on campus as a better alternative.

However, the greatest grievance that we have is with the enforcement mechanism of this plan. Over the years, DPS has refused to enforce a smoking ban, and this refusal was the snag on a plan proposed a couple of years ago. Instead, the plan proposes an honor system where members of the university are to enforce the tobacco ban. The proposed plan gives a number of scripts that a member of the SLU community can use to someone using tobacco (no, we’re not kidding). There is something very wrong with making a rule that won’t be enforced, and there are several members of the Editorial Board who have said that they have no intention of enforcing such a rule.

The members of the administration that are pushing this plan forward must consider the impact of pushing a flawed plan on the SLU community so quickly and without adequate collaboration and input. This massive plan is first shown to SGA less than two months before its proposed implementation and hasn’t even been seen or discussed by the average student. This is hardly in the spirit of collaboration and shared decision-making; a spirit that is supposedly now cherished and protected after the travails over these issues during the past couple of years. There is still time for compromise, but in order for compromise to occur, the administration must look to the entire SLU community in a timely and meaningful way.