After months of intense debate, the moment has arrived. Thursday, the start of the campus-wide tobacco ban, coinciding with the 34th Great American Smokeout, is finally here.
At a news conference Thursday, members of the Tobacco-Free Campus Task Force highlighted some of the implementation and treatment plans, while encouraging tobacco users to quit.
Thursday is a historical day for UK, said UK President Lee Todd, and the plan puts students, staff and faculty first.
Co-chair of the task force Ellen Hahn said between Nov. 11 and Nov. 17, 1,282 UK employees were anonymously surveyed, in which 26 percent said they would be more likely to quit using tobacco because of this policy. In the same survey, 76 percent said the policy would reduce secondhand smoke, and more than 50 percent said the policy would help them quit using, Hahn said.
From Sept. 10 through Nov. 13, 667 students were surveyed. Around 34 percent said the policy would reduce their tobacco use, and 27 percent said they would quit in the next 30 days at that time.
Hahn said 262 of the students who were surveyed were tobacco users, and they will be surveyed in the spring to see how the policy has affected them.
Hahn said the task force and administration are optimistic that the policy will lead to a positive change in the state, and called it “an investment in our young people.”
She encouraged students to utilize resources of the plan, including nicotine replacement gum and nicotine patches carried at discounted rates by the university.
Guy Hamilton-Smith, UK law student and former smoker of 10 years, said the policy encouraged him to quit.
Hamilton-Smith said he made the decision to quit over the summer because he did not want to try right before finals week.
Hamilton-Smith said he tried to quit cold turkey but it did not work, so he got counseling from University Health Services for his nicotine addiction.
“I’ve managed to stay smoke-free ever since then,” he said. “It really became part of my identity … it’s still quite astonishing to me that I’ve done it.”
Tim Bricker, chairman of pediatrics for the Kentucky Children’s Hospital, praised the policy for helping make people healthier.
Bricker said the policy is not about hating smokers, but hating what smoking is doing to those smokers.“There’s no cure that feels quite as good as a former smoker,” he said.
More than $1 billion a year is spent treating people who get sick because of tobacco in Kentucky, according to a pamphlet on the policy.
“That’s a billion dollars we could spend in other ways,” Todd said.