Alaska Job Corps Center is now tobacco-free

PALMER —The Alaska Job Corps Center campus went tobacco free July 1.

The center is the second campus in Alaska to join the Fresh Air Campus Challenge after I’isaġvik College in Barrow made the commitment last month. The regional challenge is a first-of-its-kind effort to encourage all college campuses in Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington to adopt a 100 percent tobacco-free policy by 2016. By joining the challenge, Job Corps is committing to conduct at least two activities by the end of 2013 that assist them in implementing their tobacco-free campus policy.

“We are proud to join the Fresh Air Campus Challenge,” Job Corps Center Director Malyn Smith said. “Our goal is to provide the healthiest possible learning and working environment for our students, staff and visitors, and limiting the harmful effects of tobacco use and secondhand smoke is one of the best ways to do that.”

The challenge brings together local, state and federal tobacco control programs in a unique partnership with college campuses to begin the process of policy adoption.

Initiation of smoking is at its highest during the college years — 99 percent of all regular smokers start by the time they are 26 years old. Smoke-free and tobacco-free policies are shown to effectively reduce tobacco use by helping prevent initiation and making it easier for people who smoke to quit.

According to the U.S. Surgeon General, there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke, and tobacco use remains the leading cause of preventable death in the nation. Secondhand smoke is responsible for an estimated 49,400 deaths due to lung cancer and heart disease among nonsmoking adults in the U.S. each year.

For more information, visit nwcphp.org/communications/news/fresh-air-campus.