WSMV Channel 4 MTSU bans all tobacco products

MTSU bans all tobacco products

A controversial change is coming to the largest, undergraduate college in Tennessee. 

Middle Tennessee State University will soon ban all tobacco products from its campus.

"Just within the last two weeks the president has made the decision to make MTSU a tobacco free campus," said Lisa Schrader, the director of health promotion at MTSU.

That means all tobacco products are banned, including cigarettes, pipes, chewing tobacco, snuff and even smokeless electronic cigarettes.

MTSU representatives said they hope the new rule will help beautify the campus and improve the overall health of its students and employees.

"You're in open air so I don't see what the big problem is," said Matt Hemmer, an MTSU student who disagreed with the policy change.

"Many of our clinical staff here in health services have reported students with asthma or other bronchial infections that say it's triggered when they have to walk from one building to another and have to encounter second hand smoke," said Schrader.

There is one exception to the rule.  You can light up, dip or chew anywhere on campus as long as you're inside your car. 

"There's no real difference between me smoking my pipe in my truck with my open window versus somebody who's walking down the street or sitting on the curb there," said Hemmer.

"It's easier to avoid a single car than it is to avoid somebody standing on a sidewalk that's in your route of passage from one place to another," said Schrader.

As for enforcement, the new policy doesn't spell out any fines or punishments for rule breakers.

"It's not like there are going to be cigarette police that are wandering around, but we're really counting on everyone involved with the MTSU community to remind people very courteously that this is a tobacco-free campus," said Schrader.

"It's just yet another non-enforceable, idiotic law," said Hemmer.

The rule goes on the record in MTSU's policy handbook on July 1.  MTSU officially becomes tobacco free on January 1.