By Stephanie Sanders
Louisville, KY – The University of Louisville's campuses will be completely smoke-free by June first of next year. The university is phasing in a smoking ban, starting November 19th. Provost Shirley Willihnganz says the Belknap campus was smoke-free indoors, and the Health Sciences campus is already completely smoke-free, but they wanted to make a statement against smoking campus-wide.
"It just seems very consistent with the university's mission that we would be making strong statement that since we know that 80% of lung cancers are caused by either smoking directly or second-hand smoke that we would come out very strongly and say this is not something we think is good for people to do."
On November 19th, smoking on campus will be restricted to university-designated smoking areas. Smoking will be completely banned by June first. Bellarmine University has also completely banned smoking; that takes effect January first. Murray State University prohibits smoking indoors, but allows it outside on campus.