With new year, LCC campus nearly smoke free

Sunday, January 4, 2009 4:43 PM PST

By The Daily News

With one exception, the Lower Columbia College campus is now officially tobacco-free.

As of New Year’s Day, a new policy prohibits both smoking and use of smokeless tobacco everywhere except in privately owned vehicles in college parking lots.

The Associated Students of Lower Columbia College and other student organizations have lobbied for the policy over the past year, according to a college press release.

The policy is intended to promote good health among LCC students, employees and the community, according to ASLCC President Justin Rossetti.

The state banned smoking inside public buildings in 1985. In 2001, LCC restricted tobacco use to eight designated outdoor kiosks around the campus. The kiosks are being removed and will be recycled for other uses.

The college’s Leadership Team voted to implement the change for Winter Quarter 2009 following a campuswide review and a final two-week comment period. The proposal was endorsed by the student government council this past summer and by the LCC Student Services Council and Executive Council this fall.

Campus surveys of students and college employees conducted last spring also affirmed support for the change. Sixty-two percent of students surveyed said they would favor making LCC a tobacco-free campus. More college staff, 70 percent, supported the change.

LCC is the second college in Washington to prohibit use of tobacco on campus. Clark College in Vancouver made its main campus tobacco-free in the spring of 2006.

According to the American Nonsmokers’ Rights Federation, there are 260 colleges and universities nationwide that now have smoke-free campuses.

Rossetti said that the student groups submitting the proposal will provide tobacco cessation activities and education for students trying to reduce or eliminate their tobacco use. Student government has approved funding for those services.

College faculty and staff have similar services available through health insurance plans.