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Smoking Snuffed Out On UT Campus


Take it across the street. The University of Texas at Austin is now a smoke-free campus. As of Monday, smoking has been banned on school property. But not everyone is embracing change.

Smoking on the UT campus has become a drag.

"I don't smoke a pack a day, I smoke a pack a week so it's not that bad," said Patrick Liamdonne.

Liam Donne has to get his nicotine fix off campus -- at least he's should.

"I know a bunch of smokers who still smoke on campus. I do it too," admitted Liamdonne.

Smoking has been put out on UT property.

"Our hope is they'll make the decision to quit, but if they don't we're not saying you can't use a tobacco product, just don't use it here," said Adrienne Howarth-Moore.

Howarth-Moore estimates 2.7 percent of the student population smokes. Kevin Miller is one of them.

"It's such a big campus you almost have to drive off of campus just to smoke somewhere," said Miller.

UT didn't decide to go tobacco free for health reasons alone -- money was a major motivating factor. The university stood to lose $30 million in funding if it didn't snuff out smoking.

"It is not without challenges," admitted Howarth-Moore.

One of those challenges will be tracking down a smoker on a college campus with 70,000 people.

"No one ever stops us. There's no police, like, stopping us," said Liamdonne.

UT plans to spend the next few months educating students and staff about the new campus-wide tobacco ban. Repeat offenders will be reported to administration. 

Here's a link to the UT tobacco policy: http://www.utexas.edu/tobaccofree/

By Alex Boyer