Thoughts?

Smoking is a deliberate choice that increases healthcare costs and decreases an employee's productivity in multiple ways -- time lost to smoke breaks, sick days, etc.

I do understand the addiction angle, and I empathize. But people overcome addictions every day.

At this time, they are only applying it to new hires, they will not be firing any existing employees.

As long as it is stated up front as a condition of employment, I have no problem with this policy.

I dislike the smell of cigarettes so much that I keep a box with a couple of dryer sheets in my office so I can "deposit" stinky tax papers in it for a "desmelling". People who live with a smoker even have a noticable scent embedded in their clothes.

But, cigarettes are legal, not healthy, but legal. So the medical center gets to tell you that you can't do something that is legal when you aren't at work.

What happens if a new hire lives with a smoker? Might they test positive for nicotine even though they don't smoke? I don't know.

Guess I still haven't decided - I like it but have some reservations.

Not sure what to do about false positives for second hand smoke - I don't know what the test involves.

I don't like sitting across the desk from someone who smells like they work in brewery anymore than I like sitting across the desk with someone wearing eau du cigarette.

Actually I can see the day, in the not to distant future, when employers stop providing health care insurance as a benefit. Then watch how fast universal health care gains popularity!!

Not to mention the occasional research that says alcohol in moderation might actually have some benefits!

In addition, President and CEO Delos M. Cosgrove, MD, and Cleveland Clinic�s leaders stopped hiring tobacco users; made smoking cessation programs free to current employees; and, in January 2007, began offering free smoking cessation programs to residents of Cuyahoga County. In four years, the county�s smoking rate dropped from 28 percent to 18 percent. "I may have saved, by that decision, more lives than I did in 30 years as a heart surgeon," Dr. Cosgrove told an interviewer on National Public Radio in September 2009.

Obviously, if an employee shows up drunk or high from a weekend binge, that's grounds for dismissal. But if they show up clean and sober and don't violate any on-premises rules, they cannot be fired on Monday for drinking or smoking or swallowing (either nicotine or other stuff) on Friday night.

It is fair and reasonable that, for example, your employer doesn't allow you to use tobacco on their property. It is not fair and reasonable to tell people how they may spend their off-duty time when they are off premises.

If they are testing for nicotine how do we know that they won't be checking for other substances or diseases? They will advertise that they intend to beat up on nicotine users, because that's politically correct. But what other types of substances and pathogens are keeping people from employment in these places?

If you're HIV positive you are a big cost, so maybe we won't hire someone who is HIV positive.

Got a veneral disease that shows up in urine? Perhaps you're promiscuous. Promiscuous people are at a much higher risk of contracting certain cancers, as well as other long and short term health problems. Nothing says "expensive" like promiscuity. And after all, promiscuity, like drug use, is self-inflicted.

Yes, we should go after the promiscuous next. The obese are just too easy because they're obvious. The promiscuous are a much greater challenge and, therefore, have a much higher prize value in the race to make some sort of point.

Maybe you have glucose in your urine. What about those opioids you're taking for temporary or chronic pain? What if you're female and pregnant? All of these things are easily testable from urine samples.

And why not? All of these are certainly cost drivers, if not outrightly dangerous. It's cheap to test for many of these. Why stop at just nicotine?

I think it shows a great deal of unearned confidence and misplaced faith to assume that employers, of all people, will be well-intentioned guardians who will only discriminate against those who (A) "deserve it" and (B) are not a protected group. They're courageous that way, dontcha know.

A few weeks back I read about some sort of health care institution that requires its employees to visit a gym three days a week - on their own time if they have to.

How much do we want to allow other people to own us? To exactly what degree should others be allowed to invade your life on your time?

Alcoholism is considered a disease (by the DSM, I think) so it would probably be a protected category, much like age and race are protected against employment discrimination.

People who give up their liberty....

What about that college that required people to sign a pledge against homosexuality? Not practicing it, mind you, but just supporting it.

Shorter University is requiring its more than 200 employees to sign a "Personal Lifestyle Statement" rejecting homosexuality.

Don Dowless, president of the Christian university in Rome [GA], said anyone not signing the statement, which also requires staffers to reject premarital sex and adultery, faces termination.

Some said on that thread that the employer should be able to do that - make their own rules.

Posted by mrskjun 9 (My Page) on
Sun, Oct 30, 11 at 8:05

I say let them go. It's a private college and they can make their own rules. In the end the college will fail, enrollment will fall away. Perhaps that is the lesson that needs to be learned.

How is this different?

But how do you counter the argument that if the employer pays for a substantial portion of your health care costs, that their interest in your vigorous good health (even extending into private matters) isn't legitimate and relevant?

If they pay, they have the right to care.

The real problem, I believe, is that employers should not be responsible for providing health insurance for their employees. There should be some other way to assure adequate healthcare is available to everyone, whether employed full-time, part-time, for a large employer or small, or self-employed.

I told this boss that the candidate had a head scarf on like she obviously had /was recovering from/ cancer. He berated me and told me I had to be more conscious about the company's money, health plan, etc, like I was an idiot to even consider hiring someone who had had cancer (who knows if she was even in remission)?

If you are one of those people, do you really want a nurse who reeks of cigarette smoke bending over you in bed taking care of you?
Do you really want your "allergic" customer to be greeted by someone who smells like smoke?

I just don't think that cigarette smokers are in a protected class, so employers probably do have the right to release them from employment. However, I do think that if normal precautions are taken not to arrive smelling like smoke, it shouldn't be a factor in most occupations.

Healthworkers, on the other hand, probably rise to a different standard.

(The problem is that most smokers truly don't realize how they carry the smoke odor with them whereever they go.)

It's none of the employer's business either, unless they are paying for a portion of the employees' health insurance. Then things get muddy. One of the many reasons that I think health insurance needs to be completely separated from employment is that it currently involves employers far too much in their employees' lives.

Again, in quite a few states it is illegal to fire an employee due to their activities off the job. You can't spy on them, you can't fire them for joining a political party or religion you disagree with, or for any other legal activity they engage in. Those things cannot be considered in hiring practices either.

I reject the premise that any employer or public entity should have this kind of power simply because they provide a (still optional) benefit. It costs what it costs; it's not necessarily going to be cheaper even if all your employees are good little soldiers for health. :-)

Since employees are also contributing to the cost of the benefit, as well as producing something of value for their employer, I'd say it's a push.

In states with community ratings, it doesn't matter if your company saves money; if folks in other companies throughout the state cost more, you're going to pay more.

I think the most disturbing part is the utter innumeracy that's usually involved in these policies. Plus it's a little too selective in its application, which smacks of ideology.

Frankly, I'd rather not have the benefit at all than have it misapplied so badly.

I think the problem with this is many people go to work with drugs in their systems like Tylenol, allergy medications, birth control pills...I could go on and on. And if we really look at it, nicotine isn't going to make you drowsy or distant like other drugs (and that could affect your work performance) so why is it worse for them to have nicotine in their system?

I don't smoke, but I feel that having an employer discriminate based on smoking is wrong.

Does your employer control your life enough yet? How about we have our employers dictate what we are allowed to serve our kids for dinner?

If you are one of those people, do you really want a nurse who reeks of cigarette smoke bending over you in bed taking care of you?

That's funny. Just a short time ago we had a situation with someone who didn't want to work with another woman. She "reeks" of curry and fish. Or those Eye-talians...they reek of garlic. We wouldn't want to give these people jobs where they will bending over taking care of people in their beds?

If the smoker is a reguar exerciser, eats very "clean" and avoids sugar, refined flours, packaged products and has lots of assorted fresh vegetables and fruits as the main part of their diet - who is likely to live to see 60 without a debilitating disease by that age?

I have known some people in that age range who never managed to quit smoking but in every other way is living a healthy life. Until I quit smoking myself (fifth year 'quit' anniversary was only two weeks ago, yea for me!) that was me - a smoker who was in every other way living a very healthy life.

Will I pay the price for smoking by dying of a smoking related disease? Odds are probably good that I will because I smoked for three decades. But maybe I also will live a much longer and healthier life because I was living a "clean" life while I smoked and live a clean life since I quit.

Do you want to spend your health care money on a person like me when I was smoking but otherwise living a healthier life than the norm - or do you want to hire a non-smoker who eats garbage can food and drinks too much every day but yet never shows up for work under the influence?

Which would be the better bet in the long run?

What about a bulimic?

The guy who comes to work on a motorcycle and is a terrible driver?

The person who does extreme sports on the weekend?

Who's going to sort it out - the govt would be wise to outlaw all tobacco products or get out of the smoker's business. Why don't they - because they make too much money? Because it would open a pandora's box that couldn't then be shut?

I think that smoking is now a socially dying addiction - it's not considered cool to smoke and the people stink and others will wave their hand across their face and put on a disgusted look because the smoker DOES stink to those who don't smoke. Stars in hollywood go to great lengths not to be photographed with those cigarettes in their hand or God Forbid, being smoked. People who would never dream of smoking might take other recreational drugs on the weekend but smoking? That's not a cool thing at all these days.

And that is a very good thing to my way of thinking because smoking DOES kill and makes for a bad dying process in general, something that doesn't get said much. But it's true, smokers have a much harder death as a rule than do non-smokers.

So let society shun the idea of smokers and shun the smokers themselves if they light up in public - the public is doing some good in it's own snobby way. It is by a public aversioin and a shunning that many past social practices were dropped over the years. When is the last time anyone saw anyone else use snuff in their whole lives? And yet at one time it was very common for men and women to use snuff.

If, for health insurance reasons, the employer is going to penalize the smoker, he better do something about the junk food eater and that irresponsible motorcyclist who might kill me one of these days or the three martini after work guy who drives home and also might kill me - or his employer- someday. Because if we make it too easy for them to treat smokers this way, it paves the way for other future issues.

We have to decide how much we are going allow others to direct our lives and how much exactly is their business to direct. I fear we will end up with unexpected reapings for what we allow to be sown - JMO

That above is very ironic. It's like the hugely obese person who piles on a McDonald dinner with diet coke.

You can't make "healthy" choices and be a smoker. Smoking trumps fresh vegetables. Go look at a dead smoker's lungs.

Is this not the same thing? Your employer telling you what you can/cannot do?

In a perfect world, an employer would not be able to tell anyone who they are allowed to sleep with on their own time either.

But we live in a time where religion and religious freedoms are considered the most important freedoms of all. In the name of religion, you can spew hatred, bigotry, racism, harass grieving families, parents can deny their children medical help or education, discriminate against others and even throw someone out of a job and its considered a good and desirable thing. As long as it's in the name of religion.

Religion trumps all. Addiction does not. Lifestyle does not.

If there are other conditions that cause legitimate and substantial loss to an employer or company, I would expect them to address that issue as well. For example, obesity legitimately affects airline companies; very fat people take up more space than is allotted to a airplane seat, and the plane requires more fuel to carry someone who weighs 300 lbs than 150. And who wants to sit next to someone who is spilling over into their space? The airlines are charging for extra baggage, bags that weigh over 50 lbs, and now some are making "customers of size" purchase 2 seats.

I think the problem is that the sentence above, if we replace "smokers" with "overweight people"...

Overweight people cost more due to increased medical costs, higher insurance premiums, decreased productivity, more illnesses, and more accidents...All in all, the economical and logistical burden placed on an employer due to an employee smoking is substantial.

...suddenly we have hordes of outraged people insisting that their rights are being trampled on if employers have a policy of not hiring anyone who is overweight.

I understand what people are saying in the posts above. Can we get rid of fat people in the workplace? They are driving up employer health costs. Can employers insist on mandatory exercise time at home at least 4 days a week? Can employers dictate what you feed your children at home if you have family coverage?

I believe that not smoking on company time is reasonable. But on their own time...

It's not surprising that it has come to the primal scream of OWS when we are so eager to hand over control of our personal lives to employers. We reap what we sow?

As for obesity, it may be the "smoking" of the future. The health and medical costs have skyrocketed in the past 25 years and are starting to approach that of smoking. Who can blame employers, insurers, etc. for addressing this problem too?

It's funny to listen to people whine about massive government out one side of their mouths while wanting to involve them deeply into every part of their lives with the other.

It's beyond easy to work an 8, or even a 12 hour shift without having a cigarette, even for a consummate smoker... you just need to be smarter than the cigarettes.

E-cigarettes are legal pretty much everywhere, I believe... except prison because they contain a tiny battery... and they don't emit an odor, or anything harmful to anyone else. Or, slap on a patch and you're good to go. What can be said about a smoker who can't figure out how to deal with a work day... good grief.

The bottom line is... I'm not willing to give up my freedoms and liberties. I ceased needing parental supervision for everything I do when I became an adult, and I'm not about to be pro-anything that gives the government or anyone else that position.

If I want to smoke on my own time, I will. It's perfectly legal. If you don't like it, don't stand next to me.

As for smokers, in my own experience at my place of employment- the employees who smoke take far more breaks than the non smokers (and the non smokers actually would get reprimanded if we walked outside and just stood around for ten minutes (as the smokers do when smoking) and the smokers are sick more often and for longer periods of time. WHen someone comes to work with a cold or the flu, then everyone becomes ills and it spreads throughout the office. Normally the first to come down with an illness are the smokers. So I do understand why some companies would choose not to hire those who smoke- higher health care costs, lower productivity etc. I know these are just generalizations and non smokers can have high health care costs and low productivity as well in some cases.

I think businesses should be allowed to hire who they want.

Also, this discussion doesn't have anything to do with government interfering in people's lives, unless your employer is the government. Is there any local state or federal government employer that has a non-smoking policy?

I should have said "recreational drugs." Prescribed drugs are a different matter. (Yes, they can be abused.)

Since I'm self-employed, I don't have to worry about an employer messing about in my personal life. My customers required drug tests and a background checks, which are fine.