It's never easy to quit.
Just ask Isra Ahmad, who helped San Jose State University kick its smoking habit.
The school is going smoke- and tobacco-free as of Aug. 1, according to the San Jose Mercury News, a directive made by the university president after research conducted by Ahmad, a recent graduate and Milpitas native.
Ahmad, who graduated from Milpitas High in 2009, worked as a national fellow for antismoking nonprofit Legacy, and collected data from surveys at San Jose State to see how her alma mater felt about tobacco use.
She'd also worked on the issue as an undergraduate, when she found that 65 percent of students polled at the school were in favor of a smoke-free environment.
That said, students were experimenting with both hookah as well as e-cigarettes, she found.
Ahmad found that e-cigarette use is gaining in popularity and is also somehow seen to be less harmful, in part because of a lack of legal restrictions, she told the newspaper.
Local
She'll keep crunching data until at least July 2015, when her fellowship ends, the newspaper reported.
