Wisc. colleges weighing e-cigarette policies

Blu Ecigs advertisement featuring Jenny McCarthy
This undated image provided by Resound Marketing shows a screen grab of the new Blu Ecigs advertisement featuring Jenny McCarthy. Companies like NJOY and Blu Ecigs are advertising on TV, forbidden for cigarettes for more than 40 years. The Food and Drug Administration plans to set marketing and product regulations for electronic cigarettes in the near future.
AP Photo/Resound Marketing

MADISON, Wis. (AP) - Wisconsin colleges are trying to figure out how to deal with electronic cigarettes, which resemble traditional cigarettes but emit vapor instead of smoke.

A Wisconsin Public Radio reportsays 16 Wisconsin colleges and universities have smoke-free policies. But there's come confusion about whether to apply those policies to e-cigarettes.

The University of Wisconsin-Stout has banned tobacco but not e-cigarettes. Communications director Doug Mell says even if the school pursued a new policy, it wouldn't apply until students had a chance to vote on it in April. He says the school is "in limbo" right now.

UW-River Falls declared its campus tobacco-free in July, a ban that included e-cigarettes. School spokesman Blake Fry says there's uncertainty about what's in the vapor, and that lack of information influenced its decision.

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