With the beginning of the next school year smokers on the campus of Louisiana State University will be encouraged to not light up. The University has adopted a tobacco free plan that will be implemented August 1st. While many of the buildings on the LSU campus have been smoke free for years, the new policy will extend to the outdoors and include all tobacco products. This includes smokeless tobacco such as dips and chews.

Does this mean you could get a ticket for lighting up on your walk between class or at an LSU tailgate party? Absolutely not. Campus police will not have the authority to write tickets or impose fines on smokers. The policy changes is more about changing a mindset than about enforcing a rule.

LSU Professor Judith Sylvester led a committee that was charged with creating the policy.

"So it's first and foremost about education, we've got to let people know why we have this policy. The federal governments wants us to be a tobacco free generation and it starts with us."

Sylvester made those comments to the Louisiana Radio Network. She goes on to say that this is the first step in getting the campus named as a "well spot" under Governor Bobby Jindal's Well Ahead program.

The goal of the policy, at least in the early stages, is more educational. There is also the hope that reduced smoking on campus will reduce the amount of litter that is found on the ground following Tiger football games.

 

 

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