Dorms go smoke free in New York

It looks like the only thing college students will be burning in their dorm rooms is the midnight oil, now that Governor David Paterson has signed a smoking ban for all college dormitories and student group residences in New York.
The new ban, which extends an existing prohibition in State University student dormitories and group residences to those of private colleges and universities, was one of 130 bills that Paterson signed into law on Tuesday, July 8.
Student residences of the City University of New York, like all municipal buildings, were already smoke-free under the New York City Health Code.
Sponsors of the amendment to the Public Health Law called for the ban for a variety of reasons, from the upsurge in smoking in the last decade, to the dangers associated with second-hand smoke, to reducing the number of fires in student residences.
According to a study from Harvard University cited in the bill, students entering college as nonsmokers are 40 percent less likely to take up smoking when they live in smoke-free dorms.
Only one exception to the smoking ban is allowed, for off-campus college or university residential units which are occupied by someone who is not a student at the college or university.
Smoking in State University schools had been prohibited since 2007, and a number of private institutions like Cornell University and Ithaca College had already banned the practice.
Cornell banned smoking five years ago; Ithaca’s ban came two years ago, according to authorities at the two schools.
“Colleges felt a responsibility to respond to increasing evidence that second-hand smoke is harmful,” said Bonnie Solt-Prunty, Ithaca’s director of residential life.
The move was lauded by, among others, the American Lung Association, which said that “Secondhand smoke is responsible for 54,000 deaths each year in the United States,” and also praised the recently-enacted hike in New York State cigarette tax.
Noting that “the total tobacco tax of $2.75 is the highest tax nationwide and makes New York State the national public health leader in tobacco taxation,” the association praised the state for the actions.
“This increase will eventually save the lives of over 77,000 youth who will be prevented from becoming smokers, and save more then 37,000 adult New Yorkers from a tobacco-caused death by helping them quit,” they said in a statement released shortly after Paterson signed the ban.