Inspiring Tobacco-Free Lives Tour Comes to Clovis Community College

The Truth Initiative came out and provided CCC with information on being tobacco free, while also blasting music and handing out free stuff. PHOTO BY NUGESSE GHEBRENDRIAS/CLOVIS ROUNDUP

Clovis Community College wants to become a smoke-free campus and with a grant from the Truth Initiative, they are on the path of getting there. 

The grant was given to CCC to hire two student workers to provide various outreach to students, faculty and staff about the dangers of tobacco use. Lexi Tarlton and Haroon Kaur, along with the campus nurse, recently attended a national training in Washington D.C. organized by the Truth Initiative. 

But, the CCC campus held an event Wednesday afternoon about the dangers of tobacco use and how the campus can come together to help tackle the issue. 

“It’s 2019 and not every college campus across America is smoke free and we think it should be,” Michael Coursey, Senior Brand Manager for the Truth Campaign said. “We also have this new epidemic of vaping and juuling, so we just came out here to just have people sign our petition and that’s really just saying, ‘we as students here, at this campus, say enough is enough and we want a smoke-free campus’.” 

Representatives from the Truth Initiative did it in a creative and fun way. They had a large truck pumping music on the campus and booths giving out free shirts and other items with information on being tobacco free. 

“The Truth campaign, our whole idea as you can see, we throw a huge party,” Coursey said. “We spread the facts about smoking, vaping tobacco and opioids not to scare anyone, but to provide the students and staff about the dangers.”

And for smokers, finding solutions involves their help and input. 

“We don’t dislike anybody. We want to work with everybody; smokers, non-smokers and whoever else willing to make a change,” Coursey said. “We just have to come together as a collective to make this happen.” 

Over the course of the year, Tarlton and Kaur will work with the school in order to draft policy for a smoke-free campus, introduce ideas of a smoke-free campus to both students and staff, while also giving the CCC campus a smoking survey.