Fanshawe College goes smoke-free across all campuses on November 1

Fanshawe College is the latest post-secondary institution across Ontario to go smoke-free across all of its campuses, just in time for the legalization of marijuana across the country.

In an email sent out to students and staff, Fanshawe president Peter Devlin said new legislation forced the college’s hand to speed up the process.

“We’ve had a team working on this with expectation of going smoke-free by 2019,” said Dave Schwartz, Fanshawe’s executive director of reputation and brand management.

“However, the introduction of Bill 36 really expedited our decision to go smoke-free by November 1st.”

Bill 36, which was introduced by Ontario’s government, will allow for cannabis to be smoked wherever tobacco is permitted.

“We’ve been working on going smoke-free for over a year now, so this shouldn’t come as a big shock,” Schwartz said.

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“However, the new legislation certainly presented an opportunity to speed up the process.”

Schwartz adds students and staff will be allowed to smoke off-campus in a public space.

“Whether that is a sidewalk or wherever, we will work with the city to transition those areas,” he said.

“But that doesn’t mean you can show up to campus impaired and you will be asked to leave the school should you choose to do so.”

Schwartz says the school will look to educate students who are caught smoking on campus at first.

“After several months, however, once it’s expected the students understand the new rules, violations will fall under the student code of conduct and tickets will be handed out.”

Western University, with a student body of more than 28,000 students, is introducing a smoke-free policy in July 2019.

Smokers on that campus must be at least 10 metres away from any building.