Skip to main content
Friday, October 30, 2026Oct 30
Subscribe
All Sections
Search
More

This story is free to read.

Cooper: School smoking ban a good step

FILE - This Thursday, Sept. 17, 2015 file photo shows an ashtray with cigarette butts outside the Oklahoma County Courthouse in Oklahoma City. Researchers found that smokers who switched to special low-nicotine ones wound up smoking less and were more likely to try to quit, according to a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2015. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
FILE - This Thursday, Sept. 17, 2015 file photo shows an ashtray with cigarette butts outside the Oklahoma County Courthouse in Oklahoma City. Researchers found that smokers who switched to special low-nicotine ones wound up smoking less and were more likely to try to quit, according to a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2015. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki) FILE - This Thursday, Sept. 17, 2015 file photo shows an ashtray with cigarette butts outside the Oklahoma County Courthouse in Oklahoma City. Researchers found that smokers who switched to special low-nicotine ones wound up smoking less and were more likely to try to quit, according to a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2015. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

By Clint Cooper 3 min read

Violence is little tolerated in Hamilton County Schools. Weapons, toy or otherwise, result in a suspension. Vending machine soft drinks and snacks are frowned upon. And school lunches apparently were so bad here and across the country that first lady Michelle Obama had to get involved.

But smoking? That’s OK for students as long as it’s outside and after school and not on public seating areas.

Dr. Valerie Boaz, a health officer at the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Health Department, told Hamilton County school board members Thursday night that ought to change.

She suggested the schools adopt a campuswide smoking ban, and we believe that’s a reasonable request.

According to the Hamilton County Schools website, the mission of its coordinated school health program “is to improve students’ health and their capacity to learn through the support of families, communities and schools.”