Here's more evidence that smoking is slowly but surely heading for the ashtray of history.

UW-Stout in Menomonie, about 200 miles northwest of Madison in Dunn County, just banned smoking and the use of all tobacco products on its entire campus, including outside in parking lots, on lawns and sidewalks. The ban kicked in Wednesday. Classes are to begin next week.

It wasn't faculty, administrators and parents who forced the change. It was the students themselves. They voted overwhelmingly to ban smoking last year in a campus-wide referendum. Then they approved a ban on chewing tobacco in a second vote this year.

This follows good news last month that smoking rates among young people continue to decline across Wisconsin, according to surveys by the departments of Health Services and Public Instruction.

High school smoking fell from nearly 21 percent in 2008 to just below 18 percent this year, the Associated Press reported. Among middle schoolers, smoking rates fell from 4.3 percent to 3.9 percent. Public health officials attributed some of the decline to higher cigarette taxes.

And back on July 5, Wisconsin went smoke-free inside bars, restaurants and other enclosed workplaces. The service industry and its customers - those who smoke and those who don't - seem to be adjusting just fine to the change.

It's all good for public health.

And those who still want to light up have the freedom to do so - just not inside public places where their smoke can harm others.

UW-Stout's ban is unique among four-year University of Wisconsin System schools in that it extends to areas outside of buildings. Yet because the campus is narrow and in two main sections, students who smoke are never more than a couple blocks from the edge of campus if they want to light up. And instead of fining violators, school officials hope peer pressure and reminders cards handed to offenders will suffice.

It's another snub to smoking as more people - including teens and twenty-somethings - avoid or quit this harmful habit.