Health Promotion held its annual Kick Butts Day on Monday, March 26 as part of a nationwide effort to stop tobacco use.
Event coordinator and supervisor of Health Promotion, Danielle Pagani, spoke about the use of tobacco and how they will raise more awareness on campus grounds.
“Kick Butts Day is an event celebrated nationwide,” Pagani said. “It is the day to spread awareness, more of an activism day. We want students to be more aware of the deceptive tobacco industry and how the marketing is very targeting to the use.”
About 80 percent of Montclair State students support a tobacco-free policy, and only three percent of the students use cigarettes daily.
Danielle Pagani said the idea for the event is to make students aware of the harmful affects that come with smoking tobacco and that there are resources on campus, including Health Promotion, to help students dealing with the problem of quitting.
The current state law and university policy prohibit smoking and/or the use of tobacco/vapor or similar products in any campus building. The campus will become 100 percent free of all smoke, tobacco and vapor products on Sept. 1, 2020.
“I am against tobacco use,” said sophomore physics major Johnathan Reyes. “The smell of it is just very unhealthy, and if the school can take that away I would be happy.”
The Health Promotion table lays out ways to quit smoking.
Hiral Patel | The Montclarion
“It is the day to spread awareness, more of an activism day. We want students to be more aware of the deceptive tobacco industry and how the marketing is very targeting to the youth,” Pagani said.
Pagani said that most people do not know about thirdhand smoking, a toxic residue left on surfaces from smoke, which is especially harmful towards children.
Another student who talked about this issue was sophomore visual communications major Alicia Pallikaropoulos.
“I want changes, changes in regulating the use of tobacco,” Pallikaropoulos said. “People still do not listen to the designated smoking policy and do it anywhere possible.”
This article was updated on April 4, 2018.
