Colleges Nationwide Banning Tobacco On-Campus
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Updated: 6:36 PM Nov 9, 2009
Colleges Nationwide Banning Tobacco On-Campus
Next week on November 19th, the University of Kentucky will go tobacco free and The university of Florida will follow suit on July 1st, 2010. These initiatives are meant to save lives, and make the air a little easier to breathe. And some of our local schools are taking a critical eye on the habit.
Posted: 6:30 PM Nov 9, 2009
Reporter: John Rogers
Email Address: john.rogers@wctv.tv
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Across the country, many college smokers' hopes of puffing a cigarette on campus will go up in smoke. Schools are considering campus-wide bans on tobacco.

Some think a simple puff can blow their cares away.

"After class, that cigarette's really nice, haha," says one TCC student.

At Florida State, they can only settle down and light up in certain parts of campus.

Throughout FSU's campus, green ash trays designate where smokers can light up. Black ash trays are placed throughout the school to prevent littering. But FSU is phasing in a plan to gradually make the campus more smoke free

FSU Health Educator Kevin Frentz says, "We've decided to take a phased-in approach to it, so it's a phased transition and knowing there's a chance we'll never got to a tobacco-free campus, but then, that's the goal."

Gradually more smoke free zones will be added to the campus.

FSU Student Will Bunnell says, "It's not a big deal. Everybody doesn't want to get the second-hand smoke but it would be really difficult out in open ventilated areas like Florida State campus."

At Tallahassee Community College, they're not cloudy over their policies. There are certain areas where smokers cannot puff, but there are currently no plans to totally curb tobacco-use.

FAMU did not return our call.

FSU officials said if they create more smoke-free areas, there will really be no way to punish smokers who break the rules, they will be kindly told to move to another area.

These national efforts to stop tobacco use on campuses is part of Healthy Campus 2020, a nation-wide effort to make college students healthier.


Latest Comments

Posted by: Anonymous on Nov 10, 2009 at 01:39 PM

I am a smoker, and think it should be kept the way it is now, certain areas you can smoke in, don't put the areas next to building doors and what not, just off to the side somewhere and if others who don't smoke don't like it then they can stay out of that area.
Posted by: Tom Location: Tallahassee on Nov 10, 2009 at 09:24 AM

What a shame , more and more fredoms are bveing taken away. I am a non-smoker, but support peoples rights to smoke in open areas.
Posted by: TaylorCountyCitizen on Nov 10, 2009 at 06:51 AM

This is a step in the right direction. When I went to FSU, students would congregate outside of buildings to smoke. You had to walk through their cancer clouds to get in or out of the building. Public K-12 schools are already tobacco-free; even teachers can't smoke anywhere on campus. It doesn't seem like a stretch to apply this policy to public universities as well. (By the way, FAMU... Nice touch in not responding to WCTV and being the only Tallahassee college not represented in the article.)
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