The campaign to end cigarette smoking in the United States has been endless. It began with warning labels, moved to higher taxes and has culminated in a vast number of restrictions about where people can and cannot light up.

The latest battleground in the fight between public health advocates and tobacco lovers is college campuses. The American College Health Association is pushing for every college and university campus in the United States to ban smoking, and at least 365 campuses have already done so. Another member of the university system, Towson University, announced earlier this week that smoking will be prohibited on its campus beginning next academic year.

But all politics — and all health policy — is local. Last night, the Student Government Association correctly rejected a resolution increasing the distance smokers must stand from building entrances and windows while lighting up. While at first glance, the idea sounds like a good way to stamp out the dangers of secondhand smoke, the policy would be pointless without adequate enforcement. Smokers are supposed to stand 15 feet away from campus buildings under current policy. But the most popular place to smoke on the campus — around Testudo’s statue — is clearly within this range. No one enforces the rule, so increasing the distance to 25 feet would just add more black ink to a rule few people follow.

The University Senate is considering a more severe alternative: banning cigarette smoking on the campus altogether. This would likely decrease the number of smokers outside of campus buildings, but dozens — if not hundreds — would just ignore the rule. It would be impossible to enforce a smoking ban across all 1,250 acres of the campus, not to mention unfair. People should be allowed to smoke where they live, and 10,966 students call the campus home.

But smoking is still a problem with staggering public health implications. It kills 390,000 people a year, has caused millions of cases of cancer and provides few benefits to the user. And there is no safe level of exposure to second-hand smoke. In other words, there’s a reason you can no longer smoke indoors, on airplanes, near public schools or in hospitals.

Forcing people to stop smoking isn’t feasible — nicotine is addictive, and you can’t just flip a switch to make the craving go away. But many smokers want to quit. A recent study by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health found smoking rates among the poor — traditionally the group with the highest smoking rates — fell 26 percent after the state made a concerted effort to target them for counseling and medications.

We believe the university should make a similar effort. Sadly, the university’s existing smoking cessation program is threatened. According to Edie Anderson, the University Health Center’s smoking cessation counselor, the Prince George’s County Health Department, which traditionally funded the efforts, stopped this year because of budget cuts. Nicotine patches and gum, which used to be free, are now available only at a discount. Counseling sessions are still free, but Anderson’s job — like countless others on the campus — may be threatened by the university’s financial problems.

But a fiscal downturn is no reason to risk students’ health. Smoking is by far the most widespread public health issue the university community faces, and if anything, these efforts to help smokers quit need to be expanded and marketed extensively. Many staffers, students and faculty members want to ditch their cigarette habit, but the highly addictive nature of nicotine makes that impossible. Smoking cessation services can help them kick the habit before it kills them. If the administration and the SGA want to end smoking on the campus, they must strike at the root of the problem: addiction. By expanding the reach of this program and increasing awareness, smokers would have a shoulder to lean on in their battle to quit.

The university should not adopt policies that discriminate against smokers, but should seek ways to help them. Students shouldn’t have to segregate themselves because they enjoy lighting up, but they should be given a firm hand if and when they decide it’s time to quit.

We want a healthy society as a whole, not just a smoke-free campus bubble.