Oregon Public Broadcasting

Smoking is banned inside virtually every public building in the Northwest.  Now, students and staff at two Oregon community colleges won't be able to light up anywhere on campus -- not even outside or in their cars. 

Salem Correspondent Chris Lehman has more on what could be the next wave of anti-smoking policies.

The opening of a brand-spanking-new facility at Oregon Coast Community College is a time of celebration in Newport.

Signs inform visitors to Oregon Coast Community College about the school's new tobacco-free policy.

Thanks to a voter-approved bond measure, the school has a building of its own for the first time in its two-decade history.

Long-time college president Pat O'Connor beamed as he compared the new digs to the old storefront location along a busy downtown street.

Pat O'Connor:  "It's everything that the old campus wasn't.  These have windows, it has natural light, it has a place for students to congregate."

What the new place doesn't have is ashtrays -- not outside the doors -- not anywhere on 24-acre campus. 

As part of the move to the new building, the community college's board approved a new policy which bans tobacco use entirely.  That means if you work at or attend Oregon Coast Community College, you can't light up or use chewing tobacco anywhere, even in your car. 

Second-year nursing student Alana Reed says she used to smoke, and she thinks the new policy is a good idea.

Alana Reed:  "I can understand when it's pouring rain here, it's really inconvenient to go way off campus and smoke, but maybe the inconvenience of the smokers having to go further away will maybe help entice them to quit."

So if I did work at Oregon Coast Community College and I really wanted a cigarette, I could walk down the driveway to the edge of campus, just outside the gates where I am right now. 

I timed it.  It was a two minute and 20 second walk at an average walking pace.  There's nobody out here right now, though, so apparently nobody needs a cigarette right now.

The school in Newport isn't the only campus to go smoke-free in Oregon recently.

Portland Community College -- the largest post-secondary school in Oregon -- just banned tobacco use across its campuses too. 

Discussions are under way to further curtail smoking at several other colleges.  But the new policies go too far, says one smokers' rights group. 

George Koodray of The Smokers Club says the argument that second-hand smoke is harmful is irrelevant if someone is smoking by themselves inside their car:

George Koodray:  "This is simply a policy now of incredible intolerance for a legal activity of which there is no perceivable adverse impact on anyone else."

But Oregon Coast Community College President Pat O'Connor says there are other issues besides second-hand smoke. 

The new policy is meant to cut down on litter and O'Connor says it makes a statement about choosing healthy lifestyles.

Pat O'Connor:  "We're not here to be the parent or whatever on that.  We don't tell people that you can't smoke.  You just can't smoke here."

Ironically, the developer who crafted the master plan for the new campus is himself a smoker.  Even so, Will Emery of Landwaves Incorporated says he agrees with the tobacco-free rule.

Will Emery:  "People who don't smoke have every right in the world not to be exposed to tobacco smoke if they don't care to be, and I think it's the proper environment for a college institution."

But just a few minutes after I spoke with him, Emery lit up a smoke in the parking lot, in apparent violation of the school's policy. First-time violators are given a verbal warning, though repeat offenders will be asked to leave campus and could be cited with trespassing if they persist.

School officials say so far few people have tempted fate. 

Meanwhile, efforts to ban smoking on another kind of campus have fallen flat. 

There was a proposal to make the entire state capitol office building mall smoke-free. But lawmakers declined to take up the issue this year and a spokesman for the state's Department of Administrative Services says it's not a priority right now.