Universities & Tobacco – The Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society

Universities and Tobacco: The Ties that Blind

Past and Present Relationships Between Academia and Cigarette Manufacturers

Although more than 1,750 colleges and universities in the United States alone have become smoke free campuses over the past 20 years (including nearly 1,500 that claim to have adopted entirely tobacco-free policies), progress in reducing cigarette, smokeless tobacco, and hookah use among U.S. university students has slowed. Prevalence may be as high as 25%. Globally, reported smoking prevalence among university students ranges from 14% in Brazil to 60% in Bangladesh. Coordinated strategies to diminish the influence of the tobacco industry in academia are lagging and require greater attention by tobacco control proponents. This illustrated exhibition explores the history of smoking on college campuses and efforts to end it. A little-studied obstacle to reducing tobacco use among university students and to exercising leadership in public health has been the financial relationships between the tobacco industry and academia, such as the presence of cigarette manufacturers at campus job fairs and investments in tobacco companies by university endowments.

The earliest lecture on the dangers of smoking is believed to have been delivered by Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse (known as the American Jenner for having promoted vaccination against smallpox in the United States) at the commencement address for the graduating class at Harvard Medical School in 1804. Yet smoking became ever more popular over the ensuing 150 years, and even after publication of the Surgeon General’s Report on smoking and health in 1964 cigarette companies continued to advertise in college newspapers, and hired students to give out free cigarettes. In the 21st century, cigarette companies continued to receive the red carpet at campus job fairs at three dozen prominent universities to recruit students as cigarette sales representatives–keeping the shelves of supermarkets, gas stations, convenience stores, and chain drugstores full of cigarettes.

Although colleges and universities were slow to restrict or prohibit smoking on campus, by 2020 over 1700 colleges and universities had implemented policies to ban smoking and vaping on campus. This section reviews efforts to ban smoking at universities.

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and Philip Morris (Altria) were mainstays of campus career fairs well into the 21st century. This section reviews the companies’ efforts to recruit college students.

Grants and Investments

Cigarette makers have provided direct financial support to universities and have had input into business school curricula. Tobacco companies have also established endowed chairs and funded research at universities. Some professors and administrators of universities serve on he boards of tobacco companies. And university endowments and pension plans continue to invest in tobacco company stocks.