It’s not enough to banish smoking, now we won’t hire smokers
Here’s the story:
In small but growing numbers, employers in recent years have been refusing to hire smokers, arguing that coaxing tobacco users to quit with free cessation programs or cash incentives hasn’t worked. Some medical experts back the bans, saying the end result of reducing smoking is worth it. But other health-care experts say the policy crosses an ethical line by singling out poorer and less educated groups who, federal data shows, smoke more often.
In all, about four out of 10 employers reward or penalize employees based on tobacco use. But hiring bans, which are legal in 21 states, are gaining traction, with about 4% adopting the policy and an additional 2% planning to do so next year, according to a recent study by the National Business Group on Health and consulting firm Towers Watson (TW).
Note the argument against these bans is that they discriminate against the poor, not that they are anti-liberty (although there’s also a libertarian argument that can be made in favor of the smoking bans: that businesses ought to be allowed to make hiring choices such as this one).
Note also how health care costs are increasingly the avenue to coming down hard on a group (in this case, smokers) whose health practices are considered harmful. Next it will be the overweight, and then those who fail to exercise, or perhaps even drinkers (except for the officially-approved red wine, of course).
Talk about slippery slopes. Our friend Professor Conly of Bowdoin would be oh-so-pleased; remember, she wants to ban smoking altogether—and, no doubt, lots of other things as well—even in the privacy of your own home.
When I read the article it was news to me that only 21 states allow this sort of practice. And sure enough, here’s a list of the 29 other states that have already passed what’s known as smoker protection laws. The fact that so many states have done so actually surprises me, although I would guess that if smoker protection laws weren’t seen as a way to protect poor people rather than just smokers, the liberal states would find the practice of not hiring smokers to be perfectly fine. As it is, in the New England area, Massachusetts seems to be the only state currently allowing companies to discriminate against smokers.
And the grand irony – I believe it’s ironic – is that the epidemiological evidence for the dangers of second-hand smoke is entirely false. All the studies – and metastudies – can arrive at is an RR (relative risk) of 1.19, which means, statistically, there is no correlation between second-hand smoke and the various ills ascribed to it. First-hand smoke? Yes, undoubtedly since the RR is about 34. (Not 3.4 nor .34; 34.) There are a lot of people who do not like the smell of cigarette smoke, but that isn’t a health hazard. Alergy to smoke? No medical evidence, either. For a straight-forward explanation, see http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/zealots.htm, authored by a retired statistician.
Government+health = a means to control individuals for their own good.
Ike: yes, I’m familiar with the research on the sketchiness of the health dangers of second-hand smoke. However, I do think second-hand smoke bothers a lot of people, especially asthmatics, although that’s a different issue than the possibility of second-hand smoke causing diseases such as cancer or heart disease.
But, as far as I can tell, this ban on hiring has nothing to do with second-hand smoke. Smoking is already banned in and even near most workplaces. This ban on hiring being discussed in this post is (supposedly) about the health costs to the company of hiring a smoker, even if the smoker doesn’t smoke at work—that is, based on the fact that smokers themselves have more sick days and higher health costs in general, and are therefore a drain on company finances, morale, functioning, what-have-you. It is about the health of smokers wherever they might smoke.
Here is irony for you. I work in a building (formerly mostly medical practitioners), where the majority of tenants smoke. My mother smoked, but none of us (her children do). I do not like cigarette smoke but the libertarian in me defends the right of the smoker on private property (including restaurants and businesses). But these smokers around me at this office building…they smoke right outside the exterior doors, leave cigarettes burning and look like the homeless in the process. One of the entities is nothing but former Soviet Union citizens working a “health agency”…government money to be sure. They all drive MBZ’s now, including their secretaries. The other, a government sponsored women’s assistance program, appealing to prostitutes. What a group!
“Goodness alone is never enough. A hard, cold wisdom is required for goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil.” ― Robert A. Heinlein
And the president would like the Cigarette tax to pay for Pre-K (female teacher contituency). How will they buy cigs if they don’t have a job?
Even the communists weren’t this intrusive into private activity. If they had tried to ban vodka in the USSR, things would have unraveled a lot sooner.
I guess if you take freedom away from people a little at a time, over a long time, over several generations, it’s possible to completely remove all freedoms and nobody but the likes of us will even notice. In fact, the majority will think it’s wonderful and vote for more rules to follow.
On that depressing note, I’m going home and having a a couple of drinks.
What about not hiring people who visit bath houses? You can certainly make the case for higher medical costs because of AIDS and STDs. Somehow these kinds of health considerations are never used against protected groups.
southpaw: yes, they could send you and your neighbor to the Gulag, but not keep you from smoking. The Soviets knew just how far they could push it.
But the US seems to have a more Puritan heritage.
I agree completely. Just as business owners have the right to decide whether or not to allow smoking on their premises.
Oops. They don’t have that right, not any more. In many places governments have passed one-size-fits-all laws that take that choice away from business owners.
So this is yet more trampling on individual liberty. And southpaw is right: Even the Soviet Union didn’t go this far.
holmes: the Left doesn’t believe in intellectual consistency.
Lest anybody misunderstand: It was the civil rights legislation of the 1960s that took away the right of business owners to hire or serve who they choose, or landlords to rent or sell to who they choose. That was an outrageous infringement of private property rights, and set a precedent for today’s usurpations.
Civil rights laws were correct and necessary for preventing government discrimination, such as Jim Crow laws, which legally mandated such things as separate water fountains and restrooms. But they went too far in outlawing private discrimination, otherwise known as “freedom of association”.
I once read of a company that did not hire smokers as a way to greatly reduce the number of alcoholics on the job.
The company I work for is one of (if not the largest) automotive companies in the world (and you probably don’t know the name) and our plant in Toledo and Michigan recently instituted this policy.
It discouraged my sister-in-law from applying to a sure thing job. Later I learned that the test couldn’t detect after 48 hrs, so you could quit and hire with random testing (which I’ve yet to see).
Per Mr. Frank, My wife and some friends and I went on the last Carnival Cruise that was smoke free. They lost too much money from low gambling and alcohol revenue.
I think I am going to take up pipe-smoking. I have smoked the odd cigar or two, but they are too much tobacco in one sitting for me.
A pipe seems to require more nurturing to produce less smoke from less tobacco, over a shorter time, most of which goes up in smoke. I also think the aroma is more pleasant — there are many different pipe blends to choose from, if you have a decent local tobacconist, which I am fortunate enough to have.
Solidarity with those who choose possibly bad habits just because they enjoy them.
After smoking, what’s next? I’m guessing weight, and derivatively food. They’ve already started.
So if the real reason for these bans on smokers is due to the “health costs to the company of hiring a smoker” and “the fact that smokers themselves have more sick days and higher health costs in general,” does this apply to pot smokers, too? I mean, in the states where it is now legal (and these employees aren’t screened out using employee drug test)? I can’t imagine that a pot smoker is any more reliable than a tabacco smoker. And what about cigar smokers? Or would that maybe adversely affect managers and CEO types?
An Obamacare argument for encouraging smoking: Assume that a heavy smoker loses (say) ten years of life (which of course come at the end of life, when one would probably be retired anyway). Then assume (as I believe is true) that most medical costs in one’s life are in the last year or so, and almost everybody will cost heavily in that time, rather than dropping dead unexpectedly and cheaply. Then, voila!, smoking is GOOD for society. All those nasty smokers are forfeiting ten years of retirement (at the expense of everybody else) and not costing much more than average in end-of-life medical expenses. And they’re paying up enormous taxes for their coffin nails in the meantime. Shouldn’t the Death Panel folks be all in favor, then? Just askin’. I smoke a pipe myself. Molon Labe.
I smoke a pipe myself. It’s MUCH cheaper than ciggies. And more civilized, IMNSHO.
Bottom line for me: is smoking legal, or illegal? It’s legal so whether i smoke or not is my own damn business. Just because I am a slave to wages, must i give up my freedoms too??
Will the do-gooders tell me next that because I own a gun I am not allowed to work at certain jobs?
I have a copy of the 1967 Surgeon General report on smoking and health and it plainly shows that moderate smokers have lower mortality and disease rates than nonsmokers. You will not find this report on the Surgeon General website. It’s politically incorrect so it’s been dissapeared.
In the early ’70s, I remember being at a party with smokers, and having to go outside for fresh air. (I would not date a smoker.) In the late ’70s, I worked in an office with smokers; by 1PM the smoke was visible from half way to the ceiling. Then we started selecting non-smokers, until we all didn’t. In the ’80s, I worked in a building with steam heat. My office guys didn’t smoke, but others did. I could wear my uniform 2 days (hanging it in a plastic bag with moth balls overnight). Then had to wash it.
So I’m against smoking inside, but that’s it.
Hi – I actually support the right of any employer not to hire cigarette-smokers, though I have no truck with smoking bans as they are imposed out-of-doors, as in public parks, swimming pools, or restaurant / bar patios.
Employers have the right, to my mind, not to be inconvenienced by the reality of smokers `going out for a smoke’ every half-hour; I know this as I have had to deal with this myself, as a workplace supervisor / manager.
Somehow, it has become accepted that, for smokers only, a dozen or so breaks of as long as ten minutes per day is required, whilst everyone else is forbidden this privilege.
RB Glennie: what if someone has a bladder problem, and they have to take frequent bathroom breaks?
Or a circulation problem, and they have to get up every hour or so and walk around for a couple of minutes?
neo, isn’t it painting with too broad a brush to say that the US has a more puritan heritage. The anti-smoking absolutism is pushed by so-called progressives who also pushed prohibition. Leftists are opposed to the tyranny of ideas pushed by religious types but do not think twice about pushing their own quasi-religious agenda on others. They are just jerks.
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