Smoking bans: Tobacco-free college campuses on rise in US

Many US college campuses are becoming tobacco-free as US schools institute total bans, indoors and out, on cigarettes and related products. Some smokers say the bans infringe on their choices. ? ?

By Kimberly Railey,?Contributor / July 25, 2012

Smokers stand in a snow storm outside a bar in this recent file photo, the result of a smoking ban in restaurants and bars in many towns on Massachusetts' Cape Cod. Tobacco bans are increasingly showing up on US colleges and universities.

Julia Cumes/AP

Enlarge

The war on?tobacco?is going to college.

Skip to next paragraph

' + google_ads[0].line2 + '
' + google_ads[0].line3 + '

'; } else if (google_ads.length > 1) { ad_unit += ''; } } document.getElementById("ad_unit").innerHTML += ad_unit; google_adnum += google_ads.length; return; } var google_adnum = 0; google_ad_client = "pub-6743622525202572"; google_ad_output = 'js'; google_max_num_ads = '1'; google_feedback = "on"; google_ad_type = "text"; google_adtest = "on"; google_image_size = '230x105'; google_skip = '0'; // -->

Subscribe Today to the Monitor

Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of
The Christian Science Monitor
Weekly Digital Edition

At a growing number of campuses nationwide, total bans on cigarettes and other tobacco products are showing up, barring students from lighting up anywhere on school grounds ? even in the open air.

The most recent school system to snuff out campus tobacco was the Ohio public college system when the Board of Regents on Monday recommended an all-out prohibition on tobacco products. In June, the University System of Maryland announced its?12?institutions,?inside and out, would go smoke-free by next July. Come September, the use and advertising of tobacco will be forbidden anywhere at schools within the City University of New York system.

Between January 2011 and this January, the number of US colleges?and universities?with total smoking bans rose from 466 to 648, according to the group Americans for Nonsmokers? Rights. Already this year, 126 schools have moved forward with smoke-free policies that apply to all areas of campus.

?We hear from colleges they?re there to educate and raise the next generation of leaders, and that it?s the responsible thing to do,? says Bronson Frick, associate director of Americans for Nonsmokers? Rights, based in Berkeley, Calif.

Some colleges have never allowed smoking for religious reasons. But about a decade ago, some that permitted it began to impose bans on indoor smoking that also governed ? coinciding with similar workplace laws ? how far from entrances smokers had to be. The concept of the smoke-free campus, which prohibits smoking even outside, marks the trend?s latest evolution.

In total, about 770 colleges are now smoke-free, according to Americans for Nonsmokers? Rights. Some take that policy a step further by forbidding all forms of tobacco, including chewing tobacco. Because the organization relies on self-reported information, the actual number is probably higher, Mr. Frick says.

While exact data remains murky, one-third to one-half of colleges nationwide have likely implemented a policy or are weighing the option, says Ty Patterson, executive director of the National Center for Tobacco Policy, based in Springfield, Mo.

Policies barring smoking and tobacco have reached a ?near tipping point,? says Mr. Patterson, who as the vice president of student affairs instituted one of the first smoke-free campuses in the country, at Ozarks Technical Community College in 2003.

The smoke-free movement on college campuses received a major boost in 2006 when a report by the US Surgeon General flagged secondhand smoke as risky at any exposure level, Patterson says.

The bans have not been without controversy, especially from smokers? rights groups.?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/GJhc4KeiKz4/Smoking-bans-Tobacco-free-college-campuses-on-rise-in-US

aurora Angie Everhart tom hardy columbine British Open leaderboard Jessica Ghawi askew