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Smoking puts WWC under cloud
Warren Wilson College in nearby Swannanoa deservedly continues to win national collegiate awards for its environment-related efforts to maintain a gorgeous campus that operates in as “green” a way as possible.
The college’s reputation is a source of pride among residents throughout Western North Carolina.
However, there is a certain irony in the recent revelation that WWC has one of the highest rates of tobacco use of any American college.
WWC’s deadly tradition can be easily observed by anyone wandering around the campus and noticing large numbers of students puffing away in the college’s smoking huts, on the bridge across the road, on the hiking trails and along the walkways.
A project by WWC student Katie Pannier presented last year to the school’s board of trustees indicated that the “30-day tobacco-smoking prevalance at Warren Wilson College (40 percent) far surpasses the national average for full-time college students (12.5 percent) and college-aged nonstudents (25.9 percent).” Further, Pannier recommended that the board provide a supportive environment for new students who want to quit smoking.
Of course, WWC officials have made efforts over the past decade to reduce student tobacco use and exposure on campus, but the students have successfully resisted.
Given tobacco’s well-documented harmful effects, WWC should finally extinguish its tobacco-friendly culture by making its campus tobacco-free and providing tobacco-cessation services. And WWC’s activists should fight Big Tobacco.
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