Colleges move toward absolute ban on smoking

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

As a political science major at Ohio State University, Ida Seitter says, she lit up many a cigarette to help her through the stress of exam season. Right or wrong, they were her security blanket as she toiled through college.

Seitter, now 26, was old enough by then to make her own decisions, she says. She opposes efforts by policymakers in Ohio, New York, California and other states to impose bans on tobacco use not just in buildings at public colleges, but also anywhere on the campus — even in the open air.

“Just back away from me a little bit. I won’t blow it in your face, and I’ll try not to be rude,” Seitter says. “At the same time, I think it’s a little discriminatory for a practice that is considered legal.”

Bans on use, advertising and sales of tobacco in all its forms are being enacted or considered at perhaps half of campuses nationwide, sometimes over the objections of student smokers, staff and faculty. The movement is driven by mounting evidence of the health risks of secondhand smoke, the reduced costs of smoke-free dorms and a drive to minimize enticements to smoke at a critical age for forming lifelong habits.

California’s state system will begin to bar tobacco use in 2013. A ban on use and advertising at the City University of New York system goes into effect in September, and the University of Missouri at Columbia is going smoke-free in 2014.

Ohio higher-education officials plan a vote next month urging all public campuses to ban tobacco use. That includes Ohio State, one of the nation’s largest universities, which currently bans only indoor smoking.

According to the surgeon general’s report for 2012, tobacco use among people ages 18 to 25 remains at epidemic proportions nationwide. The review found 90 percent of smokers started by age 18, and 99 percent by age 26. About a quarter to a third of college students smoke, studies have found.