WKSU News: Medical experts ask Ohio Board of Regents to help reduce college smoking

Wednesday, September 30, 2015 Medical experts ask Ohio Board of Regents to help reduce college smoking The Cleveland Clinic's Dr. Toby Cosgrove says one way to prevent on-campus smoking would be to charge smokers more for health insurance by WKSU's MARK URYCKI	Reporter Mark Urycki

The Cleveland Clinic's Dr. Toby Cosgrove (second from left) wants to regularly publish a list of smoke-free campuses

Courtesy of Jeff St. Clair

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Two heavyweights in the Ohio medical world asked the state Board of Regents today to reduce smoking on college campuses. The president of the Cleveland Clinic, Toby Cosgrove, suggested a carrot and stick approach.

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"We’re very interested in having the Regents enforce smoke-free campuses. We think one of the ways to draw attention to this is to regularly publish the campuses that are smoke-free and hopefully give breaks to students who do not smoke - as far as their insurance is concerned."

Cosgrove says charging more for health insurance for students who smoke would be an effective deterrent. The Clinic’s Wellness expert, Dr. Michael Roizen, added that he could find no schools in Ohio that did so. Roizen also lamented the popular practice of smoking a hookah water pipe by young students. He said one hour is equivalent to smoking 16 to 20 cigarettes.