Breathe Easy
Roger Williams University has been selected as a grant recipient for the Truth Initiative Tobacco/Vape-Free College Program. The program awards funding to colleges and universities to support the adoption and implementation of a 100% tobacco/vape-free policy. Our institution is one of eighteen colleges across the country selected to participate in Truth Initiative’s grant program this year.
Since 2015, Truth Initiative has funded more than 200 colleges and college systems to become 100% tobacco/vape-free. During the grant program, the colleges form a taskforce of students, faculty, and staff to oversee the project, assess tobacco use behavior and attitudes, educate and engage the campus community, identify a treatment plan for smokers and develop a 100% tobacco/vape-free policy.
Students are the heart of any educational institution and their opinion matters. As part of the Truth Initiative Tobacco/Vape-Free College Program, each institution identifies two students to develop and lead educational efforts for their peers. College Leaders use their creativity and influence to educate on the dangers of tobacco use and build the movement toward becoming a tobacco/vape-free campus.
In honor of the grant, Roger Wellness is launching a new campaign, breathe easy, which will encourage students to consider the benefits of quitting.
- A tobacco-free campus is healthier for all of us—students, employees and visitors.
- A 100% smoke or tobacco-free policy promotes a culture of health and well-being on campus by:
- preventing young adults from starting tobacco use
- eliminating secondhand smoke exposure and
- making it easier for smokers to quit and
- reducing cigarette and vape litter, maintenance costs and the risk of fire.
- Research shows that secondhand smoke exposure may have a negative impact on academic performance.
- Tobacco-free policies also prepare students for the workforce as an increasing number of worksites prohibit the use of tobacco.
- A college or university is not just an educational institution, it can serve as a home and/or workplace for educators, administrators, and students.
- Research shows that smoke-free campuses that have treatment services for smokers result in an increase in attempts to quit smoking.
- RWU hopes to one day be a smoke-free campus.
Faced with declines in cigarette use – the youth smoking rate dropped from nearly 23% in 2000 to an all-time low of 2.3% in 2021 – the commercial tobacco industry has expanded its product offerings to include flashy e-cigarettes, flavored nicotine-containing products such as oral nicotine pouches and lozenges, and the heated tobacco device IQOS, dramatically changing the product landscape. Companies have also begun to use synthetic nicotine – created in a laboratory and not derived from tobacco – raising regulatory challenges and health concerns. Meanwhile, combustible cigarettes are still marketed aggressively with trillions consumed each year around the world.
Tobacco/vape-free communities contribute to creating a future where commercial tobacco and nicotine addiction are things of the past and provide important protection from secondhand smoke exposure, which causes thousands of premature deaths each year.
Tobacco-free communities are also especially important for those that serve populations disproportionately affected by tobacco — including people in low-income communities, racial and ethnic minorities, LGBTQ individuals, women, youth, members of the military and those with mental illness — who have a long and documented history of being targeted by the tobacco industry.
More than 42% of the U.S. population remains unprotected by comprehensive smoke-free laws, with only 28 states and territories that have enacted such policies. In addition to supporting these policies, we are helping create tobacco/vape-free communities in many ways, including teaming with minority-serving academic institutions, community colleges and women’s colleges to help them address smoking, vaping and tobacco use in all forms through our tobacco/vape-free College Program, calling on pharmacies to stop selling tobacco and supporting Tobacco 21 policies that raise the legal age to purchase tobacco, to name just a few.
For more information, visit https://truthinitiative.org/.
1) Sign up for “This is Quitting” from truth by texting DITCHVAPE to 88709. It’s a first-of-its-kind, free text message program to help students quit vaping nicotine.
2) BecomeAnEX is a free, digital quit-smoking plan and online community of thousands of smokers and ex-smokers developed by Truth Initiative in collaboration with Mayo Clinic. Visit BecomeAnEX.org to learn more.
Additional Resources:
How to Quit Smoking from the CDC
QuitWorks from the Rhode Island Department of Health
Rhode Island Nicotine Helpline