Less Smoking and Cigarettes in Campuses

Faculty and students are holding their breath for the campus-wide smoking ban that will take place on UCF’s main campus in the upcoming fall semester. Although the school is offering resources to educate nonsmokers and cessation workshops for smokers, not all students are onboard with the health initiative, and many are questioning how it will be enforced. Troy Taylor, a senior studying digital media and a frequent smoker, doesn’t understand how the university will prevent students from lighting up cigarettes. “Is it going to be fines, verbal warnings, something else?” Taylor said. “Really, I don’t know what they can do.” Megan Pabian, a coordinator for university relations and public affairs at the UCF Health Center, said strict enforcement is not completely necessary. She emphasized the anti-smoking policy is not to hassle students but to instill a cultural norm on campus that will lessen cigarettes and smoking.

Nicotine Patches for Pregnant Smokers, No Effects

Nicotine patches do not help women given up smoking during pregnancy, according to landmark research by the University of Nottingham. Scientists from the university's UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies have just completed the largest clinical study into whether standard-sized patches help pregnant women to quit. A total of 1,050 woman, between the ages of 16 and 50 and between 12 to 24 weeks pregnant, were randomly chosen from seven antenatal clinics to take part in the study.

RYO Cigarette Stores Business End Soon

The “roll-your-own” machines at Holy Smokes in La Crosse will continue to crank out cigarettes for now, but their days likely are numbered. The $105 billion federal transportation bill that passed Friday included an amendment reclassifying businesses with the machines as tobacco manufacturers, which would require that they obtain permits, put health warnings on packs and pay taxes on the cigarettes made. “When it slipped in, no one even knew about it,” said Craig Squires, co-owner of La Crosse’s two Holy Smokes shops. “Shutting us down is one little paragraph.”

Tobacco Use in Norcross City Banned

The Norcross city council has voted to rescind the citywide tobacco ban. CBS Atlanta reports that the ban was supposed to go into effect Monday. But the council voted unanimously to scrap the entire ordinance, which would have banned all tobacco use in the city. The council members in February passed a new ordinance banning smoking in Norcross, meaning no smoking on sidewalks downtown, at city hall and in public parks. Residents spoke out against the ban during the public comment part of Monday's council meeting. Council member Ross Kaul says he might consider a more focused ban at some point in the future.