Why Canadian High Schools Had Student Smoking Pits in the 1980s

To understand why schools had smoking pits, you have to understand the broader cultural context. In the 1960s and 1970s, smoking was permitted almost everywhere:

• Hospitals — Doctors and patients smoked in waiting rooms and even hospital beds [citation:2].
• Airplanes — Smoking sections existed on flights, with ashtrays built into armrests.
• Restaurants and offices — Ashtrays were standard on every table and desk.
• University classrooms — At BCIT in the 1970s, students smoked and ate during lectures; a 1978 newspaper article scoffed at the idea of banning classroom smoking, even offering advice on constructing ashtrays from foil liners [citation:1].

Most Canadian high schools had an designated outdoor area — often a courtyard, a patch of grass behind the gymnasium, or a concrete slab near the parking lot — known colloquially as “the pit”. These areas had a few defining characteristics:

• Open to students of legal smoking age — In most provinces, the legal age was 16 in the 1970s-80s (raised to 18 or 19 later).
• Often unsupervised — Teachers rarely patrolled the pit. It was student territory.
• Social hub — The pit wasn’t just for smoking; it was where students gathered, socialized, skipped class, and formed friendships.
• Visible from the school — Usually located so that administrators could see that students were smoking, but not what else they were doing.

As one Portage la Prairie school division history notes: “Students were still permitted to smoke in designated areas behind the high schools” until the 1996-97 school year, when the first “no smoking” policy was actually implemented [citation:5].

1. Legal Age Was Lower

In the 1970s and early 1980s, the minimum age to purchase tobacco in most Canadian provinces was 16. A significant portion of high school students (Grades 10-12) were legally allowed to smoke. Schools had little legal basis to ban a legal activity for of-age students [citation:4][citation:9].

2. Smoking Was Culturally Normal

With 50% of adults smoking, there was no widespread public health consensus that smoking was dangerous enough to ban on school property. Teachers smoked in staff rooms. Principals smoked in their offices. The janitor smoked in the boiler room. Banning student smoking would have seemed hypocritical [citation:1][citation:2].

3. “Designated Areas” Were a Compromise

Rather than banning smoking entirely (which would have been unenforceable and unpopular), schools created designated smoking areas to contain the activity. The alternative was students smoking in bathrooms, hallways, or behind portable classrooms — which they did anyway. The pit was a harm reduction strategy before the term existed [citation:3].

4. Teachers Didn’t Want the Fight

A 1978 BCIT student newspaper article mocked the idea of banning classroom smoking, demonstrating that even educators weren’t yet on board with restrictions. The cultural shift toward smoke-free environments was still a decade away [citation:1].

The 1980s saw the first serious efforts to restrict smoking in public spaces. A timeline of early restrictions:

The elimination of student smoking pits happened gradually, province by province, school board by school board:

Late 1980s — Early Bans Begin

By the late 1980s, some school boards began prohibiting students from smoking on school property entirely. As one writer recalls: “Schools? At one time schools had designated smoking areas for students. They later changed the rules in the late 1980s where students were not allowed to smoke on school property, so they smoked on sidewalks” [citation:2].

1994 — Tobacco Act Debated

Federal legislation began restricting tobacco advertising and sales to minors. Bill C-71 (the Tobacco Act) passed in 1997, prohibiting most advertising and giving the government power to regulate tobacco content [citation:8].

1996-97 — First “No Smoking” Policies

Portage la Prairie School Division became one of the first to implement a true “no smoking” policy on school grounds. “Students were still permitted to smoke in designated areas behind the high schools” prior to this change [citation:5].

2000s — Complete Bans

By the early 2000s, most Canadian school boards had implemented zero-tolerance smoking policies on school property, including off-campus during school hours. The pit was dead.

Today, smoking on school property is banned outright in virtually all Canadian jurisdictions. The legacy of the “pit” survives only in:

• University designated smoking areas — Some post-secondary institutions maintain a few outdoor smoking zones, though these are increasingly rare [citation:3][citation:6].
• Sidewalks adjacent to school property — Students who smoke now congregate on public sidewalks just off school grounds.
• Vaping — The modern equivalent, though many schools now ban vaping as strictly as smoking.

A 2018 University of Regina study found about 20,500 cigarette butts on campus at any given time, with high densities in “dark areas away from doors” where students smoked illicitly — proof that prohibition doesn’t eliminate smoking, just drives it underground [citation:6].