University of Texas at Austin Bans Tobacco Use
Updated, April 11, 2012, 1:45 p.m.:
The University of Texas at Austin announced today that it will ban smoking on all campus grounds.
“This is an institution of higher education, so it’s logical that we emphasize education, awareness and a spirit of cooperation in enforcing the policy,” Pat Clubb, vice president of university operations, said in a press release.
The university was already headed toward a complete smoking ban, but that plan was accelerated after the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas announced in February that it would tie future research funds to tobacco-free policies. UT ...
Comments (26)
Janna McBride
I used to support cancer research, but not since my mother died of colon cancer. After she passed on I began my own in depth research into the causes and cures of cancer.
What did I find?
That cancer research organizations are a fraud, a scam and they steal from us all every day. They aren't taking just our money and our time, they are using our loved ones like lab rats...for PROFIT. Anyone that survives chemotherapy has truly won a tough battle. Chemo is the #1 killer of all cancer patients, it weakens and destroys the one thing you have to fight off disease, your immune system.
There is a cure that can be made at home that will kill almost all known cancers. It also corrects cancers evil sisters, diabetes and high blood pressure.
You can do as I did and start digging through all the research papers and studies, which took years or you can take a short cut...go to youtube and watch "Run from the Cure".
It IS the CURE, but it's ILLEGAL because there's no profit to be made if you can cure yourself.
MichaelJ McFadden
“I don’t know what we want to call it,” said Taylor Eighmy, the vice president for research at Texas Tech University, which has received nearly $1 million in grants. “It’s not legislation, it’s not a mandate, it’s not a federal or state requirement.
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I'm surprised someone in the position of VP of Research at a university would have such trouble with the English language. There's actually a very simple two-syllable word to describe what's being done to the university.
It's called "Blackmail."
Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
Scott K. Barrus via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Good
Cynthia Casper Robertson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Two thumbs up!
Derick Smith via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Smoke does not stay in the "Smoking Section" inside or outside. The Surgeon General's report within the last few years clearly establishes the link between cancer and second hand smoke. Hopefully the foolish arrogance of smokers will not prevail. This move is long overdue not just at universities, but everywhere.
Aaron Day via Texas Tribune on Facebook
obscene. The surgeon general report does not establish such a link. The press release about the report claimed it...but if you read the report it in fact does not. Like the EPA's claims about its study in the '90's which launched the first round of smoking bans it too was misleading. Smoke is bad but intellectual dishonesty is worse.
Matthew J Christensen via Texas Tribune on Facebook
While that article was seriously whacked; there have been numerous articles by numberous universities, WHO and many others that have proved that the carcinogens from smoking affect second hand smokers just as much as the smokers themselves.
MichaelJ McFadden
Mathew and Derick: you should read a bit more of the research and its analysis. There is most definitely *NO* research out there indicating any sort of health risk from the sort of exposure you'd get on a university campus.
The EPA estimate for environmental tobacco smoke caused lung cancer is an increase in the base rate of about 4 per thousand by 19% after 40 solid years of continuous daily exposure indoors for 8 hours a day during the heavy smoking 1940s through 1980s. That’s one extra cancer for every 40,000 worker-years.
Now your exposure walking around the campus (or in a park), particularly if it’s something you have any concern about, is likely to be on the order of about 1 minute per day instead of 8 hours (based on walking through "clouds of smokers" ten times a day at six seconds per "cloud"). So those 40,000 years would have to be multiplied by (8×60 = 480) for a total of one extra lung cancer on average for every 19,200,000 years of such exposure. But outdoor smoke is likely to be far more diluted, probably by at least a factor of 90%, than the smoke exposure in those old work environments. If that's a reasonable assumption then our 19 million years would grow to 190 million years. Since colleges generally have about four months vacation time built into their school year, the figure would expand by another third and grow to about 250 million student years to develop one extra lung cancer.
I've heard of perpetual grad students, but that's stretching it a bit.
- MJM
Samdavis
My experience is that a higher percentage of students smoke and they are less careful about where and when they blow their smoke. UT is to be commended for banning tobacco altogether. I hope other campuses, workplaces, and public facilities do their best to make this an inconvenient habit.
Al Marsh
What, students are less careful about where they smoke? Geesh, you're obviously someone who wants to selfishly impose your own preference over other students against their will. All the smokers I am friends with gladly oblige and not smoke in an outdoor area, if someone speaks up and says that their cigarette smoke is bothering them. The University of Texas college president is absolutely to be commended for his strong stance against a total campus smoking ban. Not to mention, your post sadly proves how much the former American ideal of taking personal responsibility for yourself and resolving problems on your own, has gone down the toilet for way too many citizens. If I expected government, a college's board of trustees, a company's board members, etc. to hold my hand every single second someone engaged in activity that I disagree with and thought of it as a nuisance, I'd ask for a ban on many more activities, than just on those who apply cologne and perfume excessively all over themselves. And this is despite how much I consider the smell of cologne and perfume to be disgusting!
There has to be a much more sensible and mature way to address the issue of smoking on a college campus, than an outright ban that completely spits over the personal rights of smokers, unnecessarily all because of an arrogant few anti-smoking activists. I mean, is the existing smoking policy at UT enforced well enough, and are ashtrays ACTUALLY moved well away from entrances into college buildings? I've seen numerous colleges enact total college campus smoking bans in recent years, and in each one of them, I saw many telltale signs of such a ban being ignored by smokers. The move by colleges to enact total campus smoking bans, and the fact it is being motivated by federal grant money, is proof that they are being selfishly and intensely forced by anti-smoking lobby groups on college administrators, college student councils, college board of trustees, etc., against the will of students and professors, most(including non-smokers) who don't mind outdoor smoking, as long as it's done with smokers and non-smokers using common courtesy to address any problems that may arise from outdoor smoking. There is no doubt that this grant money program to arrogantly pressure colleges, companies, communities and states to adopt indoor smoking bans over privately-owned businesses(and including their outdoor areas as well), should be immediately stopped. Period!
Anya Khan
Yea! Good for UT!
Mike Openshaw via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Applies to pot,too, correct?
Mary Bess Whidden via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Vendors used to hand out free cartons on campus.
David Huang via Texas Tribune on Facebook
No surprises there. It'll suck if you work/are located around WEL/MBB.
Allan Hunt via Texas Tribune on Facebook
TX State did it last year so as to save money on Liability Insurance....don't let em spoof you it's about "health", it's ALWAYS about the money
Jon Dye via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Other schools who have implemented similar policies have run into the problem of enforcement of said policy.
Tim Tukaram Spotswood via Texas Tribune on Facebook
We have a no smoking policy at our local school district and they can't enforce it on small campuses. On a college campus... forget it!
Elizabeth Souder-Philyaw via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Whoa. Daily Texan staffers, take note. Wonder if The Hole in the Wall still allows smoking. (Along with underage drinking and poor pool playing.)
David Lee Koontz via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Just for this, I'm making a day trip to Austin's campus where I will smoke near a building. Take that, fascists.
Mia Lozano via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I feel targeted :/
Stanley Moore via Texas Tribune on Facebook
As a lung cancer survivor, I says Great!
Derick Smith via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Mia I feel targeted when arrogant smokers smoke anywhere near a group of people especially an entrance to a building. I really feel targeted when I read the Surgeon Generals comprehensive multi-expert multi-study data of the awful effects of second hand smoke. As a former student of UT in the late 80's who watch how students jeered and yelled at cars disrespectful of crosswalks and those trying cut in line to get on a bus. I don't think this large campus will have a hard time enforcing this ban. Imagine a Facebook page full of idiot smokers. Probably the idot that just parked under a tree and stayed past dusk and got hammered by the birds. I dare you David. Give it shot. Mike petition for a pot smoker exemption and see how that goes.
Jeff Dean Case via Texas Tribune on Facebook
David Lee Koontz: The real facist is the jerk who believes it's OK to blow lethal second-hand smoke at others. Take that, a$$holes...
V Marshall
But hey while we are banning one drug, let's simultaneously lobby to legalize other types banned and controlled substances including several that are commonly smoked.
Elliot Kern
I'm offended that my name and face appear on this article. I don't agree with a single word of it. It's antagonizing and misrepresentative. But anti-smoking propaganda is usually antagonizing, I supppose: rally hatred!! Cancer will kill you and his name is Elliot Kern!! Here is his image. Attack!!! For example, Derrick seems very sure of himself and very angry. Little does he know I have consciously never exhaled in a non-smoker's direction. I respect people that don't want to be around smoke. I don't respect political stupidity though. Derrick, I hear microwaves, hepatitis B and
grilled meat are soon to be banned on campus too. Wouldn't you like that?
To everyone:
The recent policy is not a smoking ban even. It's a complete tobacco ban, including methods of consumption that are completely smokeless. No one is concerned for your health and that's not why beaucratic excrement like this exists. Show me the studies fabricating data about how second-hand chew spit increases the risk of cancer. There are plenty of studies fabricated by "multi-experts" to prove how second-hand smoke incrementally might. I get why people buy it. I'm bothered by how health fads absurdlu crenelate and aggrandize and gain political swing. Money money money...
MichaelJ McFadden
Interesting. Several months after this article appeared, a new article about a ban at another TX university is stating a policy requirement that is VERY different:
http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/06/17/4038786/campus-smoking-bans-becoming-more.html?storylink=addthis#.T-AYcYsUoYo.email#storylink=cpy
You'll note that the CPRIT spokesperson is now going to great pains to make clear that the ONLY ban they require is one INSIDE of buildings where their cancer research is actually taking place! Nothing at all about all the other buildings on campus, and most CERTAINLY nothing about banning all smoking or tobacco products in the open air.
So just who's lying to the students? Or would some official like to offer an alternative explanation?
- MJM