Courage Personified: This Foreign Girl Smokes All Over Penn’s Tobacco-Free Campus

Wow. This might just be the most inspiring story of the year. 

Alyina Morozov (W ’21) is passionate about smoking cigarettes. In fact, it’s her favorite thing in the world.

She smokes first thing in the morning and last thing before bed. Her clothes reek and she has a persistent wheezing cough. 

When she arrived at Penn, she was shocked and saddened to learn that Penn was a tobacco-free campus. This rule meant that she could not take a drag wherever she pleased. 

She felt hurt. She felt targeted. But she knew she wasn’t alone. “Cigarette smokers all over campus were suffering this daily indignity in silence,” Morozov said. 

Morozov knew she had to do something about it. “I had to make a stand, not just for myself, but for those without the strength to speak for themselves,” she said.

So, she did what she does best.

She smoked. And smoked and smoked and smoked.

Outside Van Pelt. Outside Williams. Outside the Huntsman Pret a Manger at a table. She puffed her Juul in class. She vaped weed on Locust. 

Morozov inhales tar deep into her lungs as often as she can. It’s a bold act of civil disobedience in defiance of draconian anti-smoking policy. And people are taking notice.

Morozov is still smoking everywhere and anywhere she can. And she’s not stopping anytime soon. 

LIKE and SHARE if you support Alyina’s heroic activism.