Finding a place to smoke on campus got harder in 2003, when Sacramento State’s new smoking policy took effect, but three years later some students have noticed that smokers don’t always follow these rules.

According to the stickers that are seen on almost every outside door on campus, campus policy restricts smoking within 20 feet from buildings and major walkways.

Cyndra Krogen, a health education assistant, said the policy is important to protect nonsmokers.

Krogen said the 2,000 cancer-causing chemicals present in one cigarette that smokers take in when they smoke are all the same chemicals that are present in secondhand smoke.

“Smoke also comes from two places: the tip of a cigarette and out of a smoker’s body after they have inhaled the smoke,” Krogen said.

She said secondhand smoke does not necessarily develop into long-term illnesses like emphysema or lung cancer, but instead it is harmful to people with maladies like asthma.

“Asthma is big in Sacramento anyway with our poor air quality,” Krogen said.

Leslie Snoke, a program director for Breathe California, was instrumental in developing the 20/20 policy on campus, along with an organized group of students who were a part of STAND, or Sacramento Taking Action against Nicotine Dependence.

“The original policy that was presented to the campus was a designated smoking area plan,” Snoke said. “This would be an area far away from buildings, and if you knew where it was, you could avoid it if you didn’t want to be bothered by secondhand smoke.”

Students who smoke aren’t enthusiastic about designated smoking areas.

“I’ve been a smoker for 10 years,” senior Adam Pound said. “I’d just rather walk around and smoke a cigarette and blow smoke in peoples’ faces.”

“If they have a problem with it, they can either tell me or walk away,” Pound said.

Freshman Aaron Thomas said he’s fine with smoking the way he can now.

Snoke said former CSUS President Gerth put together a committee to try to decide what the campus smoking policy should be and it was settled on the 20/20 campus policy that is in effect now.

“That was not the policy that we wanted, that students wanted, or what the faculty wanted,” Snoke said. “We, STAND, wrote a letter to (former) President Gerth saying that we could not support this policy, but he implemented the policy before he retired.”

One of the reasons why STAND objected to the policy was the difficulty of enforcing the policy, Snoke said.

“First of all, nobody knows which walkways on campus are considered ‘major.’ Secondly, the tiny stickers in the windows aren’t visible and, finally, people don’t know how far 20 feet is,” Snoke said.

Sgt. Kelly Clark of the University Police Department echoed Snoke’s enforcement dilemma.

“We have a rather large campus community with a population of faculty, staff and students slightly over 30,000 people. Our officers are busy and candidly are more focused on other activity rather than smoking violations,” Clark said in an e-mail. “If someone calls us about a violation or if we happen to observe one, we expect our officers to take the appropriate action.”

Snoke said she tried to get campus police to “enforce the policy without calling it enforcement.”

“We weren’t advocating for fines, citations or tickets,” Snoke said. “We wanted an officer, if he or she saw someone in clear violation of the policy, to give that person a warning.”

“We even created a business-sized card that had the policy on one side and tips to quit smoking on the other for campus police to carry around in their pockets to give to people in case they were needed. They refused to do this,” Snoke said.

Campus police are adamant about other violations of the law that they consider a danger, like skateboards on campus, Snoke said.

“With about one-third of students on campus that suffer from upper respiratory problems, second-hand smoke is just as much a danger,” Snoke said.