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If you want a smoke, chances are you'll be having it off campus

Megan Reed
Berry College
University of Kentucky law student Seth Thomas, smokes a pipe in the free speech area outside the Student Center on the university's campus in Lexington, Ky. on Nov. 19, 2009 in protest of the school's smoking ban.

Students at an increasing number of colleges nationwide must smoke tobacco products off campus thanks to a spike in schools with tobacco-free and smoke-free policies, according to a report from American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation (ANRF).

The report from ANRF, an educational nonprofit organization, says that over 1,500 campuses nationwide were 100% smoke-free as of July, with slightly over 1,000 being fully tobacco-free. Also, "a rapidly growing number (710) now also prohibit the use of e-cigarettes, or vaping, anywhere on campus," according to the report.

About half that many campuses had smoke-free or tobacco-free policies in September 2012, according to the website of the Tobacco-Free College Campus Initiative, which wrote about the report. The organization is a partnership between the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the American College Health Association and the University of Michigan.

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The report defines a tobacco-free campus as one on which no forms of tobacco are allowed, and smoke free as one where all non-combustible forms of tobacco are allowed.

The University of Vermont is one school that recently went tobacco-free. Its official school policy went into effect Aug. 1. Student government president Jason Maulucci says UVM sought input from students and employees before making the move.

“The reactions were very mixed when the conversations first started,” Maulucci says. “The people who are for it (point to) the health risks for secondhand smoke. The people who are opposed ... say they have the right to decide what’s good and what’s not for their bodies.”

Maulucci says the full effect of the policy change will be more clear as students arrive start classes on Monday. But the new policy, he adds, probably won't create an “overnight shift.”

“You’ll see a decline in first-year freshman smokers coming in and never having been at a UVM where smoking is allowed,” he says. “I think over the next three to four years as that incoming class gets older and older … that’s when we’ll see the full effect of the policy as a cultural shift.”

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According to the university website, UVM will focus on educational efforts as the campus adjusts to the new rule, and enforcement guidelines will then be established in collaboration with campus groups.

But how enforceable are these policies? Sebastian Parra, student body president at Georgia State University, says some students still use tobacco products on campus despite GSU going tobacco-free in 2012 (it was joined by all colleges in the University System of Georgia in October 2014, according to a press release from Georgia State).

Enforcement, he says, is difficult. For one, GSU’s campus boundaries are loosely defined and buildings -- some of which the school don't own -- are scattered throughout downtown Atlanta.

“Overall, it’s a good step to make our campus safer, especially to make the majority of people who don’t smoke comfortable ... walking into the buildings and knowing they won’t have to put up with people blowing smoke into their faces. At the same time, it’s a free country, it’s a democracy, and people make their choices," he says.

GSU’s code of conduct merely says that the university "reserves the right to initiate disciplinary procedures against any individual found to be in continuous violation" of the policy, and that staff and students should “share in the responsibility of enforcement.”

Marywood University in Scranton, Pa., also went tobacco-free this summer. The private Catholic university’s policy went into effect on July 1. Patricia Dunleavy, the university’s associate vice president for human resources, said tobacco users are generally willing to accommodate for the new policy.

“They walk off campus if they still want to smoke. They go down the street, and we’ve asked them not to litter (on nearby properties),” she says. “So far it seems to be going very well.”

Dunleavy was chair of a committee of students, faculty and staff that discussed the decision to go tobacco-free.

Marywood has made its employees aware of cessation options available through their health insurance, and students who want to quit using tobacco can go to on-campus Student Health Services for assistance, she says.

UVM and GSU also helped connect students, faculty and staff with cessation resources.

 

Note: The ANRF notes that in creating thisdocument it “relied on information found on the internet, information in student and campus administration handbooks and news articles, and information obtained from other tobacco prevention agencies” and that the information is accurate to the best of its knowledge.

Megan Reed is a student at Berry College and a fall 2015 USA TODAY collegiate correspondent.

This story originally appeared on the USA TODAY College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.

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