Increasing numbers of colleges nationwide are banning or limiting smoking.
Jump to full article: Orange County (CA) Register, 2008-03-29
Author: MARLA JO FISHER THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Intro: Fullerton College passed a ban for students earlier this month, but it's is only the latest among dozens of two-year schools around the country now nixing tobacco on campus. Even one community college in North Carolina - epicenter of the tobacco industry - is in the process of going smoke-free.
"California is leading the nation, definitely," said Kimberlee Homer Vagadori, college project coordinator for the California Youth Advocacy Network. "We have a lot more campuses and a lot more work to be done."
Unsurprisingly, many smokers are skeptical if not downright hostile to the changes.
"People who want to smoke are going to do it anyway," Fullerton College student Melissa Baker, 19, said. . . .
Around the country, other colleges from Maine to New Jersey to Missouri are also becoming smoke-free.
"The tobacco-free campus movement is real and is changing the way community college students, faculty and staff are thinking about a healthy campus environment," said Ty Patterson, vice president of student services at Ozarks Technical Community College in Springfield, Missouri. . . .
The American Cancer Society publishes a how-to guide for campuses that want to prohibit smoking. Among the recommendations: Find students to spearhead the effort. Phase it in slowly. Combine it with stop-smoking programs.
There's a hierarchy of non-smoking campuses. In California, for example, nearly 40 of the 110 community colleges require outdoor smoking to be limited to designated areas.
Other schools ban smoking on the main campus but permit it in parking lots
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