Vaping has become quite a hot topic lately. 

Whether it be the recent health scare, or just the general popularity of vaping, it seems like vapes are in the news one way or the other. 

That begs the question: What is Cuesta College’s policy on vaping?

Cuesta officially became a smoke free campus on Jan. 1. The ban on smoking apparently applies to vaping as well, even if the vape doesn’t contain nicotine or cannabis. The Campus police has made their position on vaping very clear. 

“No vaping because it’s a part of the tobacco family and we are looking for an opportunity to share the air, so that someone that doesn’t like smoking can still be affected by vape smoke,” said Alison Herson, a Cuesta College police officer. “So we’re clearing everything.”

So, vaping is completely and unambiguously banned on campus. How does campus police deal with vaping? 

“Usually we just start out with a warning but after that you can receive a citation for violating campus policies,” Herson said. “Those citations can get very expensive.”

It seems that they don’t have to enforce these punishments very often though. 

“We have found that since becoming smoke-free that we’ve had very few problems,” Herson said. “ Most of the time when we contact someone about it, (they) simply didn’t know about the rule. We’re actually surprised at how easy the enforcement has been.”

It really is that simple.  Vaping is essentially treated the same as smoking by campus police.