The University of Hawaii at Manoa announced Monday that it will officially ban smoking on campus, effective July 1, becoming the second smoke-free campus in the state after Kapiolani Community College.
The update to the school’s current anti-smoking policy will prohibit smoking within all property owned or operated by the university — indoor facilities and outdoor grounds — as well as inside vehicles on university premises. The university currently follows state law that forbids smoking in buildings and enclosed areas.
"The goal is to provide a healthy and safe environment for students, employees and visitors," UH-Manoa Chancellor Robert Bley-Vroman wrote in a Monday news release.
Meanwhile a task group will be developing steps to implement the updated policy to ensure a smooth transition in the summer.
A UH-Manoa spokesman said that in addition to putting up more signs expressing the smoke-free policy, the university will be removing public ashtrays, cigarette butt receptacles and smoking shelters from the campus. The school joins 1,014 universities nationwide with tobacco-free campuses, according to the American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation.
University Health Services health promotion chairwoman Kristen Scholly said student surveys reveal smokers as a small minority on campus, representing 10 percent of the undergraduate population.
"In terms of presenting the vast majority of people on our campus, it makes sense to go smoke-free," Scholly said.
The move is prompted by a resolution passed in February 2012 by the Associated Students of the University of Hawaii, the school’s student government, which represents 14,000 undergraduate students, calling for the school to "prohibit the use of any tobacco products on campus." The Manoa Faculty Senate voted in support of the ASUH resolution a month later.
A proposed campuswide ban on the use of tobacco products and electronic cigarettes was supposed to take effect in January 2014 but had been postponed pending review by unions and faculty.
"I think it’s a good idea," said Esperanza Fortez, a senior at UH-Manoa. "It’ll promote a healthier environment for everyone on campus."
Under the policy, smoking includes, but is not limited to, the use of cigarettes, cigars, pipes and smoking tobacco.
While the policy prohibits "inhaling or exhaling the fumes of tobacco or any other plant material, or burning or carrying any lighted smoking equipment for tobacco or any other plant material," it does not explicitly mention the use of chewing tobacco or electronic cigarettes.
A UH officialsays the policy may be updated to include electronic smoking devices, depending on future state laws.
Thomas A. Wills, whose recently published study in the journal Pediatrics found that the rate of teenagers using e-cigarettes in Hawaii is more than double the rate of mainland teens, said the long-term health effects of electronic smoking devices on users is still widely unknown.
Wills, interim director of the Cancer Prevention and Control Program at the University of Hawaii Cancer Center, said a recent controversial study discovered formaldehyde agents in e-cigarette vapor when used at extremely high voltage. Research also has found that e-cigarette liquids and vapor contain highly addictive nicotine, which not only affects users, but can also be inhaled through secondhand smoke.
"It’ll probably take a couple of years for lab studies to get a more clear picture of what really is in the vapor," Wills said, adding, "But if I had a choice of breathing e-cigarette vapor or clean air, I’d rather breathe clean air."
Both the Cancer Center and the UH medical school in Kakaako have been smoke-free since opening in 2013 and 2005, respectively.
UH-Manoa does not plan on using disciplinary measures to enforce the ban, but will rely on students, faculty and guests to ask those smoking in restricted areas to stop.
Scholly says self-enforcing policies have been highly effective in enforcing zero-tolerance smoking bans at institutions across the nation.
"We don’t want to criminalize cigarette smoking. The intent is to encourage smokers to think about cessation not just for the benefit of their own health, but also to remove secondhand exposure," Scholly said.
The university encourages those who want to quit smoking to take advantage of educational materials, cessation support services and other resources available online at www.manoa.hawaii.edu/smokefree.
