In a new online exhibit, the Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society at the University of Alabama explores past and present relationships between cigarette manufacturers and universities.
Alan Blum, CSTS director and exhibit curator writes:
Although more than 2,500 colleges and universities in the United States alone have become smoke-free campuses over the past 20 years (including nearly 2,200 that claim to have adopted entirely tobacco-free policies, according to Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights), progress in reducing cigarette, smokeless tobacco, and hookah use among U.S. university students has slowed. Cigarette smoking prevalence among college students may be as high as 25%.
Vaping (e-cigarette use) among college students is estimated to have the same prevalence. Globally, 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 medical and public health organizations.
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.
!["NEW LIBRARY READING ROOM Smoking PERMITTED” [Cigarette girl selling cigars and cigarettes, as a satirical extension of smoking being permitted in the university library], with back cover cigarette ad.](https://cdn.cancerletter.com/media/2025/05/16191633/5-scop_web.jpg)
Featuring a robust archive of advertisements, archival materials, and exclusive interviews, this exhibit explores the history of smoking on campus, campaigns for smoke-free campuses, tobacco companies’ recruitment efforts at college job fairs, and the financial entanglements between cigarette makers and academic institutions.
“The earliest lecture to medical students 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) as the commencement address for the graduating class at Harvard Medical School in 1804,” Blum writes. “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.”
Currently, of the approximately 5,300 colleges and universities in the U.S., “according to Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights (ANR), as of Jan. 1, 2025, there are at least 2,587 100% smokefree campus sites,” writes Blum.
“Thus, in spite of the progress in de-normalizing smoking in the US, the number of smoke-free campuses remains less than 50%.”
Read more on the Cancer History Project.
Related articles by the Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society
- A Vote for Cancer: Tobacco Advertising and Presidential Elections, Oct. 25, 2024
- The life insurance industry’s long, strange silence about smoking and cancer, Sept. 13, 2024
- Smoke rings: Tobacco and the Olympics, July 26, 2024
- Tabloids and tobacco: “TRICK CIGAR BLOWS MAN’S HEAD OFF”, April 18, 2024
- The boy who cried vape: Philip Morris International calls for a smoke-free world, Jan. 19, 2024
- How tobacco companies sold women a pack of lies, Nov. 2, 2023
- Like father, like son: How tobacco companies targeted families in the 20th century, June 8, 2023
- Coronations, cigarette companies, and cancer, May 5, 2023
- Exhibit: When cigarette filters were made of asbestos, April 13, 2023
- How a two-faced media covered cancer: Promoting research—and cigarettes, April 29, 2022
The Cancer History Project is a free, collaborative archive of oncology history that aims to engage the scientific community and the general public in a dialogue on progress in cancer research and discovery.
This project is made possible with the support of our sponsors: the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, ACT for NIH, UK Markey Cancer Center, Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey/RWJBarnabas Health, The University of Kansas Cancer Center, and the National Comprehensive Cancer Network.
The Cancer History Project is an initiative of The Cancer Letter, and is backed by 60 partners, spanning academic cancer centers, government agencies, advocacy groups, professional societies, and more.
Interested in learning more about the history of oncology? Subscribe to our monthly podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
