LSU campus should be smoke-free
Kick Butts Day, the annual event sponsored by Tobacco-Free Kids to encourage a smoke-free environment, is today. Once again, SmokingWords would like to challenge the campus community to be smoke-free for the day. In particular, we need to clear the smoke away from the Middleton Library entrance.
Are you aware that secondhand smoke is pulled into the library constantly through the front entrance  —     the only way in or out of the library?
Are you also aware of the litter that blights our campus from the 7,777 or so cigarettes that are smoked on campus every day?
The American Cancer Society, the Louisiana Campaign for Tobacco-Free Living and the local Cancer Coalition support an increase in the state tax on tobacco. Currently, Louisiana has the third lowest tobacco tax in the country. The goal is to increase the tax to $1.25 per pack.
Research has shown that increasing the tax discourages young people from smoking, which in turn saves thousands of lives a year.
Currently, about 27 percent of the LSU undergraduate population smokes at least occasionally. That is the highest rate we have seen in 10 years.
About 1,000 Louisiana residents die from second-hand smoke exposure every year. We need to do all we can as a community to reduce these rates and make the LSU campus a healthier place for all of us.
Nicholls State University has gone smoke-free. Several other Louisiana universities are moving in that direction. It’s time for LSU to start the process of becoming smoke-free and to let Governor Jindal know that a tobacco tax is a tax that we can all live with.
Judith Sylvester
mass communication associate
professor and founder of
SmokingWords
 
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