The smoking task force at West Virginia University met with members of the Translational Tobacco Reduction Research program Thursday to learn about the dangers of tobacco use.
Task force members heard a presentation from T2R2 based on research done at WVU's Mary Babb Randolph Cancer Center, said C.B. Wilson, associate provost for Academic Personnel and task force chair.
The presentation included information about tobacco use among college students, other institutions who have gone smoke free and the smoke-free initiatives at the Health Sciences Campus, Wilson said.
"We talked about the trend across the country and more and more campuses adopting tobacco free policies," said Valerie Frey-McClung of T2R2.
In November 2009, approximately 170 college campuses were tobacco free, Frey-McClung said. Today the number is 370.
"There's a huge push for college campuses to adopt tobacco-free policies," Frey-McClung said.
The task force also discussed the issue of
secondhand smoke on campus, Wilson said.
"The science is proven," Frey-McClung said. "There's no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke."
Possible cessation methods for the campus going tobacco free were also discussed, Wilson said.
"A majority of college students don't smoke, and the majority of West Virginia doesn't smoke, but there is a percentage of the population that does," Frey-McClung said.
"If you're going to change the policy, you have to reach out to people who will be affected."
Wilson said the smoking task force will meet next March 4.
"I expect that we're going to have another presentation by some individuals that will further clarify some of the issues we're trying to talk about," Wilson said.
The task force hopes to have focus groups to gather student and faculty input but is unsure when this will happen, Wilson said.
"It's clear that we're in the early stages, so we're probably going to have a few more of these kinds of sessions," he said.
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