Scholarship winners urged not to smoke

Thursday, March 29, 2001 | 10:50 a.m.

SUN CAPITAL BUREAU

CARSON CITY -- A bill that would have given local governments the ability to pass their own anti-smoking ordinances has ended up requiring Millennium Scholarship recipients to sign a no-smoking pledge.

Three Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee offered the amendment to Senate Bill 258 Wednesday to delete all current provisions of the bill.

The new language requires Millennium Scholars to sign the pledge as a condition for receiving the funds. It also requires taxis to post a sign indicating whether they are smoking or non-smoking vehicles.

The amended bill also expands the definition of public buildings to include school grounds and prohibits the advertising of tobacco products in school publications, on school grounds and at school-sponsored activities.

"While we are not proposing a mechanism to police Millennium Scholarship recipients to make sure they don't smoke, we believe it is important to remind them about the source of their scholarship -- Nevada's tobacco settlement funds -- and to encourage them not to smoke," said Sen. Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas.