Colleges asked to ban tobacco on campus

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State law currently prohibits smoking within 25 feet of building entrances and inside all buildings. Wright State University and the University of Cincinnati recently reviewed their smoking policies, which follow state law, and students or faculty did not favor campuswide tobacco bans.

At the University of Cincinnati, where buildings are tightly spaced, state law effectively makes most of campus smoke-free, said Richard Harknett, former chair of the University of Cincinnati Faculty Senate. UC has more than 42,000 students and is the largest employer in Cincinnati with more than 9,800 on the payroll, not including students.

The university reviewed its policy last year, and faculty and students decided to spread awareness of the current policy, which is not always followed, Harknett said.

The University of Dayton spokeswoman Cilla Shindell said, “because much of the campus includes public right of way, a campus-wide ban would be difficult to enforce; we will continue to study the issue.” The university is a private institution with 11,000 students.

Wright State, with 18,300 students, has been discussing its smoking policy since March. In student government, the discussion has been to create designated smoking zones instead of a complete smoking ban so people living in the residence halls and on-campus apartments do not have to go off campus to smoke, said former WSU student president Paul Reed. “The students are interested in doing something different than what the Ohio Revised Code is now because of a lot of students have smoke allergies, or asthma or don’t want to be around smoke,” he said.

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