Why go tobacco free?
Parks promote health and wellness in communities.
80% of Pierce County adults don’t smoke cigarettes. It makes sense to create tobacco-free environments to align with community norms.
Benefits of tobacco-free parks
Tobacco–free public places:
- Create a positive environment for children—some of the most frequent users of parks.
- Reduce opportunities for youth to start using tobacco and vapor products (including marijuana).
- Prevent negative consequences of secondhand smoke. Even outdoors, children and adults can suffer.
- Decrease litter from cigarette butts in parks. 480 million cigarette butts are littered in Washington State every year.
Pierce County tobacco and vape free parks
Twelve Pierce County park jurisdictions have smoking or vaping policies.
Smoke and vape free parks
- City of Bonney Lake
- Eatonville Parks Department
- Fife Parks and Recreation
- City of Lakewood
- Metro Parks Tacoma
- Key Pen Parks
- PenMet Parks
- Pierce County
- City of Puyallup
Smoke free parks
- City of Fircrest
- City of Gig Harbor
- City of Yelm
Why Now?
- Opportunity to align park policies with other tobacco-free policies throughout Pierce County.
- Offer the community tobacco-free environments at events.
- Promote a tobacco-free to youth who use the parks.
Resources
- Change Lab Solutions—Support for smokefree parks.
- American’s Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation—List of smokefree parks.
- National Recreation and Park Association—Why park and recreation departments should lead the effort.
- Tobacco Free Parks—Model tobacco free policy
More information
Contact Jessica Alvestad at jalvestad@tpchd.org or (253) 649-1646. Let us know if your park has a tobacco free policy and we will add you to the list.