Smoking issue gets yes and no at UO.

Byline: TRICIA SCHWENNESEN The Register-Guard

CORRECTION (ran 1/17/02): Cigarette sales bring in about $30,000 in profit annually to both the Erb Essentials store in the University of Oregon's Erb Memorial Union and the University Bookstore. The profit was incorrectly reported in a story in Sunday's newspaper.

And the great tobacco debate continues - health vs. choice.

Oregon already has outlawed smoking in most businesses, and Eugene has extended the ban to bars and bingo halls.

Now two University of Oregon retailers have taken up the issue: Should tobacco sales cease because of the product's deadly health effects?

Within little more than a month of each other, two independent boards of directors - for the UO Bookstore and the Erb Memorial Union - came to different decisions.

The bookstore board's choice came first in an 8 to 1 vote Dec. 4 to discontinue selling cigarettes, citing health concerns and the difficulty of abiding by tobacco sales regulations.

"We're selling something that is addictive and we're carrying something that does kill people, and many people know someone who wishes they didn't smoke or has suffered complications because of smoking," bookstore general manager Jim Williams said. "As one learns the health issues surrounding tobacco, it gets more difficult to justify carrying such a harmful product."

The EMU board disagreed. They voted 10 to 4 on Wednesday to allow the EMU convenience store, Erb Essentials, to continue selling cigarettes, stating that students have a right to make their own decisions.

The EMU board also took another fact into consideration: Cigarette purchases make up about a third of sales, EMU board Chairwoman Christa Shively said. Profits from the store finance student programs and EMU building maintenance.

Although smoking has proven health effects, cigarettes are a legal product for most people at the university, Shively noted.

"If I knew (ending sales) would stop one person from smoking or if it would reduce secondhand smoke, I would have gone for it," she said. "This is a pretty liberal campus and that means choice."

The UO Bookstore board took up the discussion over the summer when Williams broached the subject after reading Dr. Paul Slovic's book, "Smoking: Risk, Perception and Policy."

The book analyzes tobacco companies' marketing strategies and concludes that they publicize the idea that the choice belongs to everyone - but it's a manipulated choice, Williams said.

"That's not to say people aren't thoughtful people and maybe we're all tricked in some ways when we make decisions, but there's a lot of thought that goes into the advertising part of tobacco products," he said.

Bookstore officials also were concerned by increased regulations aimed at preventing cigarette sales to underage smokers. Employees were forced to card everyone - even when there was a long line of customers - and those caught violating the law could face up to a $600 fine, Williams said.

"How do you know they're a minor - are you 22, are you 19, 17, 18," he asked. "The bookstore isn't out to save everybody from all sins in the world, but we know tobacco products are not healthy and we could no longer justify selling them."

The EMU board took up the issue in October after biology professor V. Pat Lombardi asked the store to stop selling cigarettes because they are carcinogenic and produce dangerous secondhand smoke.

Lombardi, a professor at the UO since 1980, said he was drawn by the store's name to wander in and check it out.

"As a person that studies nutrition, I wondered what was essential," he said. "I go in the place and I see they have the typical junk food of a convenience store, which is not essential, then I saw that they had cigarettes and I was appalled."

So, the EMU board began considering the matter, looking at other schools that had discontinued tobacco sales and estimating how a ban would hit the store's finances - something the bookstore didn't have to consider.

Cigarette sales bring in about $130,000 in profit annually to both Erb Essentials and the bookstore. That makes up one-third of total sales at the convenience store but only one-half of 1 percent of the bookstore's total sales.

The EMU didn't want to take the financial hit, and students weren't particularly impassioned by the issue, Shively said.

"This is a student building, paid for by students' fees, and if I'm not hearing from students that this is an issue that they care about, then (the answer) was pretty clear to me," she said. "This was not an issue brought up by students. It was brought up by a faculty member."

Regardless, Lombardi said, health should be a higher priority than money.

"In my mind, it's tainted money," he said.

He isn't bothered by the belief that many students will simply walk to another store.

"I say good," Lombardi said. "Maybe, while they're walking, they'll be thinking about the health effects of tobacco smoke. It will be one less minute they will be smoking."

Stacey Isaac, a 29-year-old student and nonsmoker, said the decisions means little to her. Yet, in her mind it was clearly a matter of choice.

"Hey, if they want to kill themselves, OK," Isaac said. "I mean we sell alcohol on campus, too."