Student Smoking

Smoking with Mozart and Superman in Guantanamo Bay






The smoking area at St Mary’s High School reminds me of a military stockade Guantanamo Bay Style. The huddled masses inside, whatever the elements, shuffle close together with the one powerful force that binds them…nicotine. Dealing with juvenile smokers and deciding where to locate them has become both an irritant and an embarrassment for educators.



Personally, I feel sorry for young people, particularly the under age smokers, who care so little for their own bodies. Off course, young people suffer from the “Superman Syndrome” in that they feel omnipotent and invulnerable. Seemingly, nothing can affect their youthful existence. I wish they were right, but apparently, even kryptonite can take superman down.


In my former high school, located in northern Alberta, (which makes me feel this is more of a universal issue), we too felt embarrassed and plagued by smokers. In response, administration set up a “smoking lounge” in the rear of the school to hide our shame. “Lounge” should be read in the loosest sense of the word as it was really a barren cement area backing onto a brick wall on one side and a soccer field on the other. Eventually, graffiti and litter became such a problem that administration, likely out of sheer frustration, banned smoking on all school property.

Naturally, this decisive action did little to solve the problem; it merely served to transfer the problem. In fact, it led to a mass migration of smokers to the local convenience store across from the school.


The first thing that happened was that theft in the store went way up. In response, the store manager monitored the admission of students to the store to only three at a time. Eventually, he did not allow any students into the store over the lunch break because his loses were too great.


The store manager still had to deal with all of the student smokers on his property. In a truly creative flare, he installed speakers high on the exterior walls and played country and western music long and loud. Perhaps, not realizing that he was in Alberta, this strategy was less than effective in getting the smokers off of his property. He next switched to opera and classical music with the net result of creating a semi-cultured, youthful smoking audience who chilled out to Pavarotti and Mozart.


What are the lessons for St Mary’s High School? Do smokers have no regard for themselves or others? Smokers love opera and country music…too horrible to contemplate! Smokers are thieving, littering, graffiti artists…perhaps some…but let’s not go there. Smoking should be banned from school property. In truth, I really do not have the answer to this complex social/locational issue of our times.


I do know this…each morning I walk into St Mary’s and see the huddled group of refugee-like smokers in their stockade at the front of our beautiful school I sadly shake my head, yet, happy in the knowledge that we will soon have a plaza across the street. I often wonder what musical preferences our new neighbours will have.

previously published in OECTA Agenda