McMaster plans to ban all smoking on university property
An Ontario university is the latest to join the short list of Canada’s smoke-free post-secondary campuses, a move that anti-smoking advocates hope will help the country’s educational facilities catch up with their American counterparts.
Hamilton’s McMaster University announced that all tobacco and oral smoking products would be banned effective Jan. 1, 2018. The ban includes recreational and medicinal marijuana smoking, though the university said people who need it for therapeutic purposes can consume it through edible products or other means.
McMaster becomes at least the 14th Canadian college or university to make its campuses 100 per cent smoke-free. The school’s move will also include an active effort to help smokers quit by directing them to cessation programs.
Dean of students Sean Van Koughnett said the new approach was necessary in order to promote health across the university community, adding it’s part of a broader social shift away from public smoking.