Two years ago, an alumnus from Justin Green's fraternity house asked Green to buy him cigarettes.

"I went to the store and bought the wrong ones," said Green, an economics senior.

But instead of getting rid of them, Green, a one-time health-conscious athlete in high school, said he ended up smoking them himself.

"I never even tried a cigarette my entire life until I came to Michigan State," he said.

Nursing senior Hillary Pasch, who spent Wednesday night preparing for today's Great American Smokeout, hopes the message behind the event will reach those like Green.

"We see firsthand the effect that tobacco has on our patients and all of their family," said Pasch, who is the president of the MSU Nursing Student Association.

For the Great American Smokeout, an awareness day sponsored by the American Cancer Society designed to help smokers quit, Pasch joined about 50 other students to write anti-smoking messages with sidewalk chalk around campus.

In hospitals, Pasch has worked with people who have everything from heart problems to asthma as a result of smoking.

"Smoking has such a negative effect on people," Pasch said. "It's hard for me to watch my patients who have smoked or been around smoke secondhand."

Green smokes the occasional cigarette when he goes to the bar or when he needs a study break at the library.

The fact is, most students are smoking less than in previous years in spite of MSU being the only Big Ten university to allow smoking in undergraduate dormitories.

In 2000, about 19 percent of MSU students had smoked six or more times in a 30-day period, said Becky Allen, a health coordinator at Olin Health Center.

Now, that number has dwindled to about 9 percent, she said.

"In society, we are finding more hotels and restaurants are going smoke-free," said University Housing Director Angela Brown. "Out in California, there are whole cities that are going smoke-free, so I think it's a direction society is going in."

Brown said a significant number of freshman students come to MSU expecting to live in a nonsmoking environment.

"Smoking seems to be more and more of an issue," she said.

Across campus, there has also been a push for a smoke-free environment in dormitories.

University Housing is writing a proposal with the Residence Halls Association, or RHA, and other housing divisions on campus for nonsmoking living options.

"RHA and University Housing conducted separate surveys of students living in university housing last year," RHA President Lindsay Palinsky said. "There was an overwhelming majority of students who would support a complete ban on smoking in the resident halls."

In fall 2008, Spartan Village and Cherry Lane apartments could be 50 percent smoke-free. Currently, there are no smoking restrictions at on-campus apartment complexes.

University Housing's proposal, which will likely be drafted by early December, also would ban smoking in the undergraduate residence halls and Owen Graduate Hall by fall 2008.

"We are the only school in Michigan and the only school in the Big Ten that still allows smoking in our undergraduate resident halls," Palinsky said. 'We feel that it's also a health and safety issue for students."

In August, when the new University Village undergraduate apartment complex opens on Kalamazoo Street and Harrison Avenue, it will be nonsmoking, she said.

Interior design senior Alisha Cochrun said it's about time the university bans smoking to stop people from lighting up when they come to college.

Cochrun began regularly buying cigarettes at age 19. This summer, she tried quitting but gave in after the pressure of her whirlwind semester became too much.

"I started getting stressed out with work and school, and I just picked it up as a habit," she said.

She said academics take up 15 hours a day, in addition to working 35 hours a week as an assistant manager at Beaner's Gourmet Coffee.

"I didn't sleep at all last night," Cochrun said.

Still, Cochrun said she wants to give it up even though it relieves her stress.

"Smoking is a really bad habit," she said. "I wanted to quit really badly, but school is just too overwhelming."