COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio higher education officials voted unanimously Monday to urge the state’s public campuses to ban all sales and use of tobacco products, including smoking outdoors.
The Ohio Board of Regents’ resolution comes after a review showed such policies bring health benefits to both smokers and nonsmokers and cut costs for education institutions, said chairman James Tuschman.
Tuschman said Ohio can set an example, since it often serves as a test market for new tobacco products aimed at young people.
“It is the right thing to do,” he said.
The Regents’ recommendation extends to all Ohio’s campuses, including Ohio State, one of the nation’s largest universities. Currently, OSU bans only indoor smoking and some outdoor smoking around its health facilities. The university said Monday it will review the issue.
At least seven public colleges or universities in Ohio currently have tobacco bans, including Miami University, Hocking College, and the health science campus of the University of Toledo.
Regent Patricia Ackerman said she backed the resolution “as someone who smoked my first cigarette at age 14, as someone who went to college and viewed as a true act of liberation making that first official act of freedom purchasing a pack of cigarettes.”
