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GREENSBORO — Hey students: If you're thinking of dropping your smoking habit, now might be as good a time as any.

Have they gone too far or is this overdue? Join the discussion at the Debatables blog.

By next fall, three Guilford County college campuses will be 100 percent tobacco free. Others are debating their own bans or creating tobacco-free zones around buildings.

Local campuses are riding a wave of anti-tobacco policies at schools that has swept the state in the past two years, in part prompted by legislation that allowed campuses to prevent tobacco use in and around their facilities.

"We want to set a tobacco-free norm on our campuses," said Mary Gillett, Guilford County tobacco prevention coordinator.

All Guilford County campuses have some limits on use of tobacco. Bennett College became the first college in the state to go smoke-free several years ago.

On Aug. 1, Greensboro College and GTCC will ban smoking and chewing tobacco everywhere on their campuses.

The move not only promotes health, said Kathy Carstens, director of student health services at Greensboro College. It also prepares students for a world where few workplaces allow smoking.

"They are coming from tobacco-free schools and they going to tobacco-free workplaces," Carstens said. "If they don't have it on campus, maybe they won't pick up the habit at all."

At GTCC, the movement was prompted by legislation that allowed community colleges to ban tobacco use on campus.

"We're not saying that they can't smoke. They just can't do it here," said Berri Cross, director of student life at GTCC.

Last summer, the legislature also passed a law allowing state universities to prohibit tobacco use within 100 feet of campus buildings. UNC-Chapel Hill and Winston-Salem State University have instituted a 100-foot ban.

At UNCG, a university task force recommended this week that the chancellor approve a 25-foot ban around campus buildings, said Mike Byers, UNCG assistant vice chancellor for business affairs.

A 100-foot ban makes it difficult to know where you can and cannot smoke, Byers said.

"We went with the 25 feet because that seems the most fair within what students are asking for and seems to alienate the fewest people," said Jason Robertson, UNCG wellness coordinator.

UNCG, GTCC and Greensboro College officials aren't the only campuses considering changes.

N.C. A&T officials are debating a change to their policy. Guilford College officials plan to survey students later this year to determine if they would like to strengthen the current tobacco policies.

Campus leaders have already seen an effect of the upcoming policy changes. Robertson has seen an increase in students and staff signing up for his smoking cessation sessions. GTCC and Greensboro leaders have already heard about staff or students who have decided to quit in anticipation of the ban.

"I've got one student who was adamantly opposed to the tobacco-free campus, and he has quit smoking," Cross said.

Contact Amanda Lehmert at 373-7075 or amanda.lehmert @news-record.com