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CMC Summit campus to go tobacco-free this fall

ROBERT ALLEN
summit daily news
Summit County, CO Colorado

Tobacco smoking, snuffing, dipping and chewing will be prohibited on the Colorado Mountain College Summit Campus this fall after staff and faculty voted 42-8 in favor of the ban.

“It’s clearly a mandate,” said CMC Summit CEO Alton Scale.

The campus will be the first of a public college or university in Colorado to go tobacco-free.



In January, the Denver School of Nursing became the first higher-education institution to go tobacco-free, according to a press release.

“It’s clearly a trend-setting position we’ve taken,” Scales said.



About 50 percent of the CMC Summit faculty and staff participated in the Feb. 18 survey.

For folks feeling fired up about the policy, it could help them to quit the fatal habit, Scales said, adding that the campus will be offering a series of smoking-cessation classes.

“Our goal is to make our community even healthier ” and sometimes you need help ” so we’re going to be offering that assistance,” Scales said. “It’s not enough to say it’s not allowed.”

He said the policy will affect both the Breckenridge and Dillon facilities.

It will also impact the shared parking agreement the Breckenridge campus has with the town regarding skier parking.

A task force ” which includes a smoker and community members as well as faculty and staff ” began considering the policy last fall and decided ultimately to survey faculty and staff.

Scales said other entities are considering similar policy.

Officials with CMC are “looking at coming together” with the Family Intercultural Resource Center, which is near the Dillon CMC facility, to make it more difficult than walking across the street to smoke a cigarette.

Across the country, 122 colleges or universities are 100-percent tobacco free, according to the American Lung Association.

Tobacco use is the single most preventable cause of disease, disability and death in the United States, with an estimated 443,000 premature deaths each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Robert Allen can be contacted at (970) 668-4628 or rallen@summitdaily.com.


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