Meanwhile, student leaders at the University of Arizona, ASU's arch-rival, are making progress of their own, so much so that I decided to pose an unofficial online "race" to a tobacco-free campus policy on Facebook. Unless the U of A is able to get a policy passed and effective fall 2013, it appears that ASU will win this race. A new push for a tobacco-free Pima County may help the cause. With that having been said, I would hope that the U of A would not pass a policy without adequate forethought; much planning needs to be done to make any tobacco-restrictive policy work as intended.
Some ASU students are voicing legitimate concerns about moving smoking off of campus property--and onto streets and/or private property. Interestingly, since the University of Oklahoma went smoke-free this year, a street corner nicknamed 'Cancer Corner' has developed into a smoking haven. Even more interesting is that the CEO of the company that owns the property is actually accommodating the smokers, offering to install a bench, trash cans and a smoking urn to help keep the property clean. Still, one student had this to say about his experience smoking on Cancer Corner:
“People look at us like we’re meth heads, but we’re not drug users,” --University of Oklahoma freshman...Oh, but you are--you just don't realize it.
Regardless, all of this comes at a time when the US Department of Health & Human Services is launching its National Tobacco-free College Campus Initiative, so I am hopeful that, within a couple of years, these collegiate updates will no longer be newsworthy, but rather commonplace.
Other news:
- A slap in the face of Big Tobacco: A new apartment complex in Richmond, Virginia--home of tobacco giant Philip Morris, will have a smoke-free policy.
- I ran across what I thought was a catchy campaign to get small communities to adopt tobacco-free parks, pools and playgrounds: Young Lungs at Play. I gather that the program was developed by none other than Penn State...Nobody ever hears about the good news...
- A Dairy Queen in Indiana, a state that recently passed a highly controversial smoke-free policy, has installed a "no smoking" sign on its drive-thru window. Ignoring the strong possibility that many Dairy Queen drive-thru customers have kids in the car (see recent debate in Utah about smoking with kids in the car), this is still a very interesting topic. While some would say that smokers have the right to smoke in their car, fast food workers can argue that secondhand smoke drifting through the drive-thru window endangers their health. I must I would like to see more of this kind of activity at other fast food chains, nationwide--regardless if local smoking ordinances are in place or not...but I suggest that we don't start in New York City, where sugary drinks over 16 oz. will be banned as soon as March. Let's not anger the customers too much...
