UI Interim President Gary Fethke approved a temporary smoking ban within 25 feet of all occupied UI building entrances and exits, parking facility stair towers, elevators, lobbies and doors that already are not covered by University Hospitals’ smoke-free policy.
Health sciences campuses stomp out smoking
March 25, 2007
By Brian Morelli, Iowa City Press-Citizen
By Brian Morelli, Iowa City Press-Citizen
Ban latest restrictions on smokers
Jim Huck sucked down one of his last cigarettes before getting his wisdom teeth yanked about 25 feet away from the front entrance of the University of Iowa College of Dentistry.
Beginning next week, the patient won’t be able to duck out during his followup visits for a smoke or even a quick drag. That is because there will be signs all over the UI health science campuses — the Colleges of Dentistry, Pharmacy, Nursing, Medicine and Public Health — letting people know, as of April 2, they can’t smoke.
“I don’t like to be smoking in people’s faces, but it seems ridiculous,” said Nick Huck, Jim’s brother and the designated driver for after the surgery.
This is just the latest in a series of restrictions for smokers on campus, in Iowa City and around the state, and there are more on the horizon. While it may sound like smokers’ rights are being stomped out like a burnt cigarette butt, the moves appear to be achieving lawmakers’ goals of making Iowa’s air cleaner and forcing people to quit.
Gov. Chet Culver recently signed into law a $1 per pack tobacco tax increase, and legislators currently are debating whether to give local control for smoking bans; the Senate approved that last week.
At UI, smoking indoors was outlawed in 1992. University Hospitals’ campus went smoke-free last July. A 25-foot rule from campus entrances and exits currently exists for smokers and that will extend to 25 feet from around all campus buildings in July.
Interim President Gary Fethke is weighing whether or not to make the whole campus smoke-free in 2008.
Ammunition for the changes likely stems from the surgeon general’s 2006 opinion that says there is no safe level of secondhand smoke.
Despite the efforts, one expert says Iowa still is behind the curve when it comes to making it more difficult for smokers.
“We are following well behind the rest of the world and the nation as far as trends. There are a lot of the non-smoking policies that are now catching on in Iowa,” said John Lowe, a UI professor and head of the Department of Community and Behavioral Health who directs the Iowa Tobacco Research Center.
Lowe served on the Health Sciences Policy Council, which recommended and is implementing the new no-smoking policy on the health science campus.
Lowe has been doing smoking prevention research for about 25 years. Lowe said there are three key contributors to getting people to quit: increasing cost, decreasing the number of smoker-friendly places and providing good cessation support networks.
“We are seeing that (this works) by number of people that are calling Quitline,” Lowe said. “People need that push.”
Lowe was refering to Quitline Iowa, a free phone-based cessation counseling service. Lowe said its usage has tripled since the $1 tax increase took affect. His office says it is getting more than 250 calls a week and is preparing for more with the health science campus ban.
The next step in the move to run smoking out of Iowa could come with giving communities the right to decide their own smoking ban policies.
That passed the Senate with an amendment that allows fraternal organizations, places such as American Legions, to maintain their rights. The House is looking at similar legislation, but it is considering additional amendments for such places as casinos and bars.
Rep. Dave Jacoby, D-Coralville, said he supports the bill, but he said it likely will face some resistance. Jacoby co-sponsored a bill that called for a statewide ban, but it was defeated.
He said businesses, in particular, are fearful of local control because they are worried about losing customers to smoker-friendly places. Jacoby said Iowa could see another run at a statewide smoking ban next year.
The problem, Jacoby says, is “people don’t like mandates.”
Proposed smoking ban raises questions
2/19/07
Ashton Shurson – The Daily Iowan
As a campuswide smoking ban at the UI inches nearer to reality, questions about enforcement and necessity spring up, such as whether the proposal will help smokers quit and if other changes will be noticeable.
Ashton Shurson – The Daily Iowan
As a campuswide smoking ban at the UI inches nearer to reality, questions about enforcement and necessity spring up, such as whether the proposal will help smokers quit and if other changes will be noticeable.
And if the policy is implemented, it will make an even larger statement by making the UI the first major public university nationwide to have such a ban, although other colleges have come close or considered campuswide smoking bans.
“Originally, that was the direction the task force wanted to go,” said Ken Kerns, the associate director of environmental health and safety at Iowa State University about that school’s efforts to restrict smoking on the Ames campus. “But we started to look at logistics, and this wasn’t the right time.”
Starting on Jan. 12, Iowa State banned smoking within 25 feet of campus buildings. Northwestern University, the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, and the University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign also have 25-foot bans, but around entrances and air intakes.
Purdue University and Indiana University have no smoking within a 30 foot perimeter around buildings.
Kerns – who chaired Iowa State’s Smoke Policy Task Force – said a campuswide ban would force many employees and students to travel far off campus.
“We’re not banishing them out to the middle of nowhere,” Kerns said. “We’ve had very little [opposition].”
While the UI Smoking Policy Review Committee has collected opinions from UI employees and students regarding the pending ban, it received “varied response” to a smoke-free campus, according to the panel.
Enforcement tactics will depend largely on members of the UI community educating each other about the ban. The recommendations do not specify harsh enforcement policies; rather, the main focus is to help smokers quit and reduce the smoke exposure of nonsmokers, officials said.
Many have argued whether loosely regulated rules will change someone’s behavior. Yet, according to medical experts – it can.
“There is a pretty strong association [between restrictions and quitting],” said Christopher Squier, a member of the Iowa Commission on Tobacco Use Prevent and Control and a UI associate dean of the College of Dentistry. Squier cited a study conducted from roughly 1998-2002 after UI residence halls went smoke-free, which reported that the number of undergraduate smokers dropped from 35 percent to 26 percent.
Squier said a smoking ban will not only cut the number of smokers but also show the “importance of role models.”
“We try to do what’s best for students,” he said. “[And if we expose them to smoking], we are failing in our responsibilities.”
Interim President Gary Fethke is collecting input from the UI community about the policy until April 1. If implemented, the ban will begin in July.
E-mail DI reporter Ashton Shurson at:? ashton-shurson@uiowa.edu
U of I committee suggests stricter smoking ban
December 9, 2006
Iowa City, Ia. – A University of Iowa campus committee has recommended an expanded no-smoking zone at the university.
The Smoking Policy Committee, formed in December 2005, sent a report this week to interim university President Gary Fethke, recommending that smoking be restricted within 25 feet of all campus buildings. That expands on the current rule, which bans smoking within 25 feet of all building entrances and exits.
The committee’s recommendation would include all athletic facilities and parking ramps.
Fethke has asked all faculty, staff and students to give their input to the report.
The committee recommended that the new restrictions take effect July 1. Two years later, the campus should become completely smoke-free, the report said.
Susan Buckley, an associate vice president of finance and operations and committee co-chair, said the recommendations allow for time to determine the impact of the changes.
“That’s a long window to create a lot of room for discussion about the issue,” Buckley said. “We’re not asking for the whole campus to go smoke-free tomorrow. We respect that there are a lot of issues that must be worked out.”
The committee also recommended that the university seek health insurance for smoking cessation classes, that all resources to help people quit smoking be available to “all members of the campus community, and that all university apartment buildings be smoke-free by fall of 2008.”
Luther Moss, 28, a senior, said the university has the right to ban smoking on campus. Moss, a smoker, said he wouldn’t protest a ban, but also wouldn’t be likely to quit smoking.
“I’d just start smoking as soon as I got off campus,” he said.
Temporary smoking ban begins Monday
August 11, 2006
Angela Meng
Angela Meng
A temporary smoking ban at the University of Iowa will go into effect Monday.
On Thursday, UI Interim President Gary Fethke approved a temporary smoking ban within 25 feet of all occupied UI building entrances and exits, parking facility stair towers, elevators, lobbies and doors that already are not covered by University Hospitals’ smoke-free policy.
“The university intends to reduce smoking on campus with a temporary ban until a permanent policy can be put in place,” UI Interim President Gary Fethke said in a statement Thursday.
“We’re making efforts to improve health and to protect people from second-hand smoke, which has been identified by the U.S. Surgeon General as a serious health threat.”
The University Hospitals ban went into effect July 1 and prohibited smoking — inside and outside — on hospital property, including the parking ramps.
Susan Johnson, UI associate provost for faculty and co-chairman of the UI Smoking Policy Review Committee, said she and five other UI faculty, staff and students were appointed by former UI President David Skorton in January to look at the university’s smoking policy and make recommendations for changes.
“In the spring, we had occasional concerns about smoking outside entrances,” Johnson said. “Then after the University Hospitals made their smoking ban, that aggravated a lot of places on the boundary, for example, the Field House. We had a huge increase of complaints.”
UI facilities management is looking for the best option to get “no smoking” signs up as soon as possible.
Johnson said the committee will speak with various governance groups on campus this fall to ask for advice and then make a permanent recommendation to the president.
“The president will take our input seriously,” Johnson said. “It may be a whole year before we decide on any permanent policy or it may be shorter.”
Johnson said that because of the growing concerns with health risks from second-hand smoking, the committee is content with the temporary ban.
“We feel comfortable with the ban on the entrances and exits,” Johnson said. “At the very least, we will recommend that. It may be more or it may be just that, but it won’t be less than that.”
Johnson said the most extreme recommendation will be a campus-wide ban, but she thinks that would be a major decision for a public university.
“I think the main issue is looking at what the health risks are of smoke in open air,” Johnson said. “We’re still in the research phase.”
