Louisiana residents settling their nicotine craving with cigarettes can breathe easy — a proposal to increase cigarette taxes from 36 to 68 cents was rejected by the House tax committee Tuesday.

Senate Bill 36 by Sen. Yvonne Dorsey, D-District 14 and Sen. David Heitmeier, D-District 7 could also have banned smoking on public college campuses.

Kinesiology senior Brad Penny said though he does not like the idea of government regulating citizens’ actions through taxation, he supports the idea if the money from the tax will go toward a fund to help people.

Kinesiology junior Katie Blanchard said she attended Nicholls University her freshman year when the campus had just become a tobacco-free campus.

Blanchard said because smoking affects everyone, she enjoyed that students were only allowed to smoke off campus.

When walking to Middleton Library, Blanchard said she is uncomfortable with the smell of cigarette smoke.

Judith Sylvester, associate professor of mass communication and founder of tobacco education group Smoking Words, expressed concern for the language in the bill because it leaves room for the use of other smokeless tobacco products.

“We don’t want students or anybody to turn from cigarettes to other tobacco products,” Sylvester said.

Other universities and Southeastern Conference schools that have similar regulations have no exemptions, Sylvester said.

Penny said he does not smoke but disagreed with the idea of a smoke-free campus.

“I don’t like the idea of a university infringing on someone’s rights,” Penny said.

Architecture sophomore Shannon Livaudais said if smokers would change their practices, smoking on campus wouldn’t be an issue.

Livaudais added that she does not smoke near doorways or in large crowds and believes if all smokers applied these practices, smoking would be less of a problem.