OKLAHOMA UPDATE

SUMMER 2008

OSU CLEARS THE AIR

On July 3, Oklahoma State University became the largest campus in the state to ban tobacco. As many of you might remember, last year Oklahoma City University became tobacco free. 

OSU's wellness center offers cessation help and, in some cases, medication and nicotine replacement products, to students and employees. 

This leaves many to wonder, will University of Oklahoma be next? 

At this point it is looking very unlikely.  Catherine Bishop, University of Oklahoma spokesperson, said that current state law prohibits smoking in the buildings already and prohibits smoking within 25 feet of all building entrances.  “So far, though, there hasn't been grassroots support for banning the practice everywhere else on campus.” 

The issue was brought up this spring in a Student Congress after Oklahoma State approved its policy last year, which went into effect Tuesday. Student Congress chair Kurt Davidson said it was never even made into a formal resolution. 

"It was one of those issues that was brought up but there wasn't any traction," Davidson said. 

Bishop said in an e-mail that university President David Boren would want input from students, faculty and staff governance groups before considering any smoking ban. If there was support, Boren would appoint a task force to study the issue and suggest an implementation plan. 

Interested in getting University of Oklahoma tobacco free?

Please contact Paula Warlick at paula.warlick@cancer.org or at 1.888.376.1725.

CAIN’S BALLROOM IN TULSA GOES SMOKE-FREE

It’s official.  July 1, 2008, Cain’s Ballroom has gone smoke-free.  Now not only patrons but employees and musicians will no longer have to suffer for their art.   Polly Robinson-Baxter, an active member of the Northeastern Tobacco Free Oklahoma Coalition (NETFOC) wrote the owner of Cain’s to complain about their lack of compliance to state law. 

Polly and her husband attended a concert a couple of weeks ago at Cain's Ballroom where smoking was allowed even though no smoking signs were posted.  In fact, the security guards were smoking as well.  They wrote a letter to the Cain's Ballroom management and contacted the Tulsa Health Department's Consumer Protection Department to report this violation of the Smoking in Public Places and Indoor Workplaces Act. 

This only took one person taking action and YOU to can do the same thing in your community.   

For ways to get started, please contact Paula Warlick at paula.warlick@cancer.org or at 1.888.376.1725.

ANTI-SMOKING ADVOCATES SEEK TOTAL PUBLIC SMOKING BAN

BY JANICE FRANCIS-SMITH

THE JOURNAL RECORD

Where there's smoke, there is Cynthia Hallett., The executive director of the Berkeley, Calif.-based American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation has been all over the country fighting for laws to protect more people from secondhand smoke. 

She testifies at hearings, speaks to governmental entities, pumps up her colleagues at workshops and reaches out to the public via press conferences. On Thursday she was in Oklahoma, standing alongside representatives of the Oklahoma Alliance on Health or Tobacco. The group held a press conference promising to fight again next year for a law that would ban smoking in all public places in Oklahoma. 

Hallett doesn't for one minute buy into the argument that it's not the proper role of government to interfere with the people's right to engage in a lawful activity in public places.  Or that workers have the choice of accepting or declining employment in places where smoking takes place.  "We don't allow asbestos in the workplace," she said. "We require waiters and waitresses to wash their hands." 

Clearly, state and local governments across the nation are not shy about imposing certain policies when the public health benefits are apparent, she said. So if some government officials continue to resist efforts to protect workers from the well-documented dangers of secondhand smoke, they have just one reason for doing so, she said: the tobacco industry. 

"We are likely to continue to see opposition to this, even though this makes sense," said Hallett. "There are hundreds of laws in place like the one proposed, and the arguments against it are designed simply to take you off message and off track." 

Laws to ban smoking in all public places have been enacted in 30 states and more than 600 communities, she said. In each case, worries that the law would harm local businesses have been proven unfounded; rather, businesses have reported no loss of business or even an increase after nonsmoking laws are enacted, she said. 

In 2003, Oklahoma became one of the first states to pass a law restricting smoking, though that law does not extend as far as Hallett and other anti-smoking advocates would like. Restaurants in Oklahoma may allow smoking in a separately ventilated room set aside for that purpose, while smoking is allowed in free-standing bars and other specially designated facilities, such as VFW halls. 

Oklahoma's law does not protect those workers who are required to serve customers in smoking rooms or who work in venues where smoking is allowed. State Sen. David Myers, R-Ponca City, had introduced Senate Bill 1875 for the 2008 session, which would have banned smoking in all public places, but the bill was defeated early in the legislative process. Myers said his desire was to provide some financial assistance for restaurant owners who had invested in smoking rooms. 

Efforts to reduce smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke would address some of the greatest challenges to economic development in Oklahoma, said Pat Marshall of the American Cancer Society - poor health statistics among the work force and high health care costs.