University of Kentucky is going tobacco-free today

The flagship university of the state with more tobacco growers than any other has officially gone non-smoking. Today, to coincide with the American Cancer Society's Great American Smokeout, the University of Kentucky officially banned the use of tobacco products on all campus property. Smoking had previously been banned withing 20 feet of a building and on the medical-center campus.

The move to a tobacco-free campus didn't go without notice among farmers. "It was very much the social fabric of many of those rural communities here in Kentucky," Will Snell, a UK agricultural economics extension professor, told Austin Schmitt of The Kentucky Kernel. Schmitt profiles Giles Shell, right, a May 2009 UK graduate who left the university with a degree in biology to return to his family's tobacco farm. He told Schmitt that tobacco is more than a crop, it's a way of life, and that it isn't bad for people, and that it's overuse of the product that causes problems. "It’s my livelihood, it’s my life, it’s what feeds my family," Giles said. "It’s what buys my vehicles so I can go from here to there." (Read more) (Kernel photo and video by Allie Garza)



You can also see the PDF images of the Kernel's special section today.