Campus-wide smoking ban reconsidered

Smoking areas across the University of Wyoming campus may soon be no more. Proposals for a smoke-free campus, which almost took effect several years ago, might be revived in the near future.

Surveys conducted in the state of Wyoming indicate that 97 percent of Wyoming adults view second-hand smoke as dangerous.

“We have people dying from their own cigarette use, and we have people dying from other people’s cigarette use,” Tiffany Comer Cook, senior research scientist at the Wyoming Survey and Analysis Center, said. “The surgeon general has come out saying that there is no risk-free level of exposure to second-hand smoke—zero, it’s not safe.”

The 2011 National College Health Assessment survey indicated that 85 percent of UW students do not smoke tobacco and prompted action from the Associated Students of the University of Wyoming student government of the time.

A survey conducted by ASUW itself indicated that a majority of students, staff and faculty supported a smoke-free campus, and this led to an official resolution in favor of a campus-wide ban that passed in August of that year.

Despite general support for the ban and ASUW’s action, existing smoking regulations were generally upheld by the UW Faculty Senate in February 2012, with only minor modifications made to the smoking policy.

Currently, smoking is prohibited in all buildings at UW but permitted outdoors, and must take place at least 20 feet away from building entrances.

(Photo by Jack de Morgan) Members of the A-Team gather to discuss several topics, including making UW a smoke-free campus.

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