Smoking becoming a no-no on college campuses

(HealthDay)—Smoking continues to fall out of favor at colleges and universities across America, a new study finds.

As of November 2017, over 2,000 U.S. college campuses were smoke-free (no smoking) or tobacco-free (no smokeless tobacco use or smoking), compared with only 774 campuses in 2012, the report found.

In 2017, 84 percent of smoke-free campuses were tobacco-free, compared with 73 percent of smoke-free campuses in 2012, according to the study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation.

"Colleges and universities are ideal places to promote healthy behaviors that can continue for a lifetime, including being tobacco-free," Corinne Graffunder, director of the CDC's Office on Smoking and Health, said in an agency news release.

"Tobacco-free campus policies could help reduce tobacco use and provide people with a healthier environment to live, work and learn," she added.

The study also found that among college and university campuses with smoke- or tobacco-free policies, 80 percent specifically prohibited e-cigarette use, and 41 percent prohibited hookah (water pipe) use.

"The tobacco product landscape is changing," explained Brian King, deputy director for research translation in the CDC's Office on Smoking and Health. "Our nation's young people are using a variety of tobacco products, including e-cigarettes and hookahs," he said.

"It's important that we keep pace by ensuring our proven tobacco prevention and control interventions include these products," King added.

The findings were published in the June 22 issue of the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.