▲ Lee Joo Young (’14, Biomedical Engieering), the member of the Living Welfare Department of Jieum, confessing about the current status of the SmokingZones. Photographed by Lee Hyejin.

There have been a lot of conflicts going on between students at Korea University (KU), and one of them is between smokers and non-smokers. Jieum, the current school body, has launched a program called Smoking-Zone (S-Zone) to appease both sides, which is designating specific areas for smoking with yellow tape, but it is yet uncertain whether the new solution will be effective or not.

 

Numerous universities in Korea have been riddled with the conflict between smokers and non-smokers. While the former calls for the protection of their freedom to light up a cigarette, the latter demands for an immediate halt of such behavior. The schools have been scratching their heads to devise a solution to end the disagreement between the two. 

 

There was more to why Jieum started taking action other than the clash between the two sides. The smokers did not find the already-installed smoking booths to be easily accessible. Their claims have been proven to be true since only two smoking booths exist at KU, one located in the Liberal Arts Campus and another in the Science Campus. The lack of facilities seems ludicrous when considering that a good percentage of KU students are regular smokers.
 
In response to these problems, Jieum decided to tape around particular regions of the school to reserve them for smokers. Lee Joo Yong (’14, Biomedical Engineering), the member of the Living Welfare Department of Jieum, explained that these smoking regions called S-Zones were set up “based on accessibility of the students.” Lee went on further by saying “So far, it was an unspoken agreement that the smoking regions be near trash cans, but the students needed more than this.” 
 
Lee did not hesitate to point out the problems of the smoking booths. “As a result of the lack of the facilities, a very few number of students even bother to use them. In fact, they are rendered obsolete,” commented Lee. “What also is problematic is the cost of the installation of such facilities,” complained Lee. “It costs around 15 million won to construct them, and that is almost half of the funding that Jieum receives every year.” 
 
While Lee wishes the best for the newly created S-Zones, he also believes that there are limitations to the taped areas. “Unlike a legislative body of a government, we are only Jieum, a student body organization which can only plead the students to obey the rules and not enforce them,” confessed Lee. “The best we can do at our position is to simply launch campaigns and hope they achieve our goals.” 
 
What added to the dire situation was the uncooperative attitude of the smoking companies. Lee, after realizing how costly setting up the booths will be, formerly contacted smoking companies such as Korea Tomorrow & Global (KT&G) for some funding or donations, but their answers did not come back as an affirmative. Lee and the other members of the Living Welfare Department of Jieum were left with no choice but to devise a very cheap and effective solution. 
 
Lee concluded by further expressing his disappointment in the overall effort to draw up a solution. “The biggest flaw of the S-Zone campaign is that Jieum, as mentioned before, is only an organization and, hence, has no enforcement power. Students, in reality, can and will do whatever they feel like,” expressed Lee. “Despite the weakness, the campaign itself has good intentions, and we are hoping that they will be used as intended headded.” After all, it is ultimately up to the consciences of KU students to make the university into a much cleaner environment.
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