I’ve seen it, you’ve seen it, we’ve all seen (and smelled) it: Obies smoke, and they do it virtually everywhere. Walking through a miasma of cigarette smoke on the Mudd Center ramp or the front steps of Wilder Hall is a universal Oberlin experience. Cigarette butts sit mockingly on the ground in front of those iconic green signs, each emblazoned with a crossed-out smoking Yeobie: “OBERLIN COLLEGE TOBACCO-FREE AS OF JULY 1, 2016.”

This year, though, Oberlin is evidently cracking down on tobacco. On Sept. 10, a Student Health and Well-Being bulletin announced that Oberlin College and Conservatory received a $20,000 grant from Truth Initiative. The Review reported on Sept. 26 that the grant will support efforts to “form a task force to assess campus attitudes and behaviors around nicotine use, develop stronger enforcement mechanisms, and expand access to resources for students who want to quit vaping or smoking.” The most recent related bulletin announced the grant-supported “Clear the Air” campaign’s Oct. 13 kickoff in Wilder Bowl. 

Despite the prominence of the initiative, many students have barely interacted with it and don’t seem to fully understand its intentions. 

College fourth-year Hunter Harnphanich, who smokes and vapes, said most of what he’d heard about the initiative was through students’ derision of it.

“I saw the table once outside Wilder [Hall],” Harnphanich said. “Maybe an email or something. But most of the exposure I’ve gotten … is through word of mouth of people trolling on it.”

College third-year Finn Polito noted artsy Oberlin students’ fixation on aesthetics, and, as what Harnphanich called “trolling” illustrates, how they’re subsequently compelled to ridicule attempts to interfere with those aesthetics. Polito denied experiencing peer pressure but noted friction between his anti-tobacco stance and campus culture.

“I do think it’s weird to be staunchly opposed to it as much as I am,” Polito said. “Cool Obies smoke, and they look really artsy and awesome. It kind of feels like, ‘You don’t have to smoke, but if you do, you’re kind of cooler in a way,’ which I guess is its own sort of pleasure.”

“Coolness” appears to be a prime impetus for Oberlin students to start smoking, especially when they first start college. College first-year Xander Ashcraft said several of his classmates took up smoking in their first semester, and Harnphanich admitted that he started smoking because he felt it was cool, specifically at Oberlin. He even claimed he wouldn’t be a smoker had he gone to a different school.

College third-year Emery Aikin, who smoked a Camel Blue during our interview, shared this sentiment, factoring in party culture.

“I think it’s mostly the aura farming. Party culture does not help because of the mentality that drunk cigs don’t count,” Aikin said. “It’s hard to stop. It’s hard to know your limits when you’re this young.”

Double-degree fifth-year Lyric Anderson, who quit smoking and vaping over a year ago, echoed Aikin’s point. Coupled with students’ easy access to cigarettes, smoking is a staple of the Oberlin night out, which makes it difficult to avoid — and difficult to quit.

“[Quitting is] harder here, in part because it’s very easy to get stuff, and then the other part of it is that it’s cultural,” Anderson said. “If you’re trying to quit, when you’re drunk and have a cig, that will totally reset your clock.”

The “drunk cigarettes don’t count” mindset reflects the broader attitudes most of my interviewees mentioned: deferral of the consequences of smoking to a later date and, for some students, utter indifference. Aikin and Harnphanich said they would likely stop smoking after college, but also, along with Anderson and Polito, said being young often enables students to downplay long-term effects. 

“Nihilism is part of the culture, and I think it just goes hand in hand with the smoking,” Harnphanich said. “Me and my friends will literally be making jokes about the fact that we’re doing s**t that’s super harmful. … [The initiative’s] intentions are so good, but it’s just not going to work because they’re not telling us anything new, and we just literally don’t care.”

Anderson emphasized that this mindset strengthens an industry that one might think a lot of Oberlin students would be against. 

“Even when I was smoking cigs [and] vaping, I always knew that I was contributing to the system of getting other people addicted,” Anderson said. “The blame should not be on the people who are getting addicted and should not be on the kids here at Oberlin who are smoking. … This is a really evil industry that preys on susceptible young people and impoverished people. … It’s interesting that people will say, ‘I don’t use Amazon,’ but then are probably supporting a company like Marlboro or American Spirit.”

While Ashcraft characterized the initiative as a lost cause, Anderson, Aikin, and Harnphanich offered ideas on how the initiative could make an impact. Aikin said, as someone who has struggled with addiction, what they’ve seen so far hasn’t felt sensitive enough to the issue.

“I would have done it differently … [connecting] with resources rather than a photo booth and a fun little event because it feels more like a joke to me,” Aikin said. “It’s condescending. … If you’re not going to approach with empathy, they’re not going to do anything about it. Shame isn’t a way to get people to do things.”

Anderson expressed his hope that the initiative would focus less on enforcing the tobacco-free policy and more on providing resources to those who want to quit. He said quitting is easier with other people and suggested the initiative form a group where people who want to quit can sign up to quit with other people, facilitated by mental health professionals and physicians.

Harnphanich said that, while the introduction of the initiative has made him contemplate his decision to smoke, it won’t change his behavior. He said the initiative would need to propel a significant cultural shift where students would take it seriously, even if it means using blunter methods.

“It has to be not cool anymore,” Harnphanich said. “Maybe [the initiative] just need[s] to level with us more, be like, ‘It’s f**king lame.’ This may backfire, honestly, and I understand why they wouldn’t immediately do this ’cause it might draw some people away, but they really got to point at the ridiculousness of it. … I think if people interact with it more seriously across the board, it would have more impact, because when you hear your friends joking about it, you want to chime in.”