Lehman College Goes Tobacco Free

The air at Lehman College just got a lot fresher.

Beginning on July 1, 2012 the campus became tobacco free, and the smoking or consumption of tobacco in any form is not longer permitted.

This new policy is in accordance with new rules adopted by the trustees of the City University of New York on January 24, 2011. All twenty-three CUNYcolleges will institute the same tobacco policy no later than September 2012, making CUNY the biggest smoke-free university system in the United States.

CUNY’s new tobacco policy is part of a growing trend among colleges across the country—more than 500 to date have adopted such measures, including most recently the University of Buffalo and Columbia University. CUNY officials decided that as the largest urban university system in the nation and with its new School of Public Health, the time for action was now.

CUNY officials said they felt a responsibility to do their part to help smokers—estimated at thirteen percent of the CUNY population—kick their habits. “The more you can remove cues in the environment that are associated with that addiction, the less craving the smoker will feel,” Dr. Alexandra W. Logue, CUNY's executive vice chancellor and university provost, told The New York Times.