Warning: Smoking Is Hazardous to Your Employment

Yahoo ^ | 4/8/13 | Leslie Kwoh

[Hot Tabasco]

Well... who's fault is that? Sounds like they have a choice..

Why do you want to single out the smokers, go after the alcohol consumers. They create more tragedy in this country each year than a century of smokers could ever do......

I think you have your priorities mixed up bro.........

[Secret Agent Man]

I don’t have problems with employers telling staff they can’t smoke in their buidling or on company time, or even come to work smelling like an ashtray.

I think if the worker gets insurance through the company and the company gets dinged for higher premiums because of the smokers, if they are forcing every other worker to pay for every unhealthy and risky thing that also increases their premiums, then they can do so for smokers too.

But I am not for singling out just one group of people for one unhealthy behavior, but letting all the others doing potentially far worse things (unprotected anal sex, promiscuous sex - hetero or homo, drug use, alcoholism, crappy diet, overweight, dangerous sport activity, whatever) and their behaviors somehow are let slide.

Sorry, I am not a smoker and I think it smells terrible, but unless you’re being consistent in penalizing people for ALL the unhealthy stuff they do in their private time, and just going after the one flavor of the month it’s cool to persecute, you’re not only a hypocrite but you’re an idiot for the potential lawsuit that follows.

[Hot Tabasco]

Yep. And now the "cool ones" are all (or nearly all) dead.

These guys are still alive........oh wait, they're just drunks who haven't killed anybody yet.

Tobacco vs. alcohol, hmmmmmmmm......which one do you think resulted in this?

Or this one.......Tobacco or alcohol?

Another tobacco related accident? You be the judge Scott.......

And yet another victim of smoking........not really

You either support the Constitution and the rights of the individual or your nanny state Scott........there is no pick and choose of whatever suits your own personal wants......

It's people like you who are the greatest threat to conservatism today.

[OneHun]

"...are also much worse the your average drug addict."

Who would you choose to be your chauffer: one who had a cigarette, or one who is high on cocaine or marihuana or heroin or LSD or speed, etc?

"...also poison anyone around them, and they don’t care who they poison."

So, smokers murdering other people?  This is leftwing propaganda based on junk science.  Nobody was able to prove what you wrote. Next, I am going to hear that smokers created the global warming, too?

"Smoking should have been banned years ago."

Oh, this is rule nr.18 of the Taliban: "Mujahideen should refrain from smoking cigarettes."

[Hot Tabasco]

Smoking should have been banned years ago.

Then my post #43 is directed at you too............

[NEMDF]

Two relatives of mine died, at young ages (63 and 54). Both were severe alcoholics. Both died of organ failure in a drunken fall. Their livers were a mess. Both smoked cigarettes. Both of their death certificates listed tobacco use issues as the cause of death. It was not true. Not defending smoking, but I wonder about the statistics....

[southernnorthcarolina]

Well, it's been a while since I've seen a smoking/anti-smoking thread on the Free Republic. The decline in smoking is impressive, but 18.9% of U.S. adults strikes me as high -- it's more like 2% of the people I know.

Five or ten years ago, when first one state and then another was banning smoking in restaurants and work spaces, it seemed like there were two or three threads a week started by aggrieved smokers claiming that their rights were being violated. One woman who used to post here, I swear, must have smoked for a living, so often did she post on such threads. Haven't seen her in a while -- she may no longer be with us, in one sense of the phrase or another.

But now, smoking prohibitions seem to be the norm, exciting little controversy. Now, it seems difficult to believe that rolling up dead leaves in paper, sticking it in your mouth, setting it afire, and spewing smoke wherever you please was ever anything but aberrant, anti-social behavior.

The complaint that restrictions on employee smoking discriminate against the poor is interesting. I have no doubt that the incidence of smoking has an inverse relationship with income, and most likely with intelligence. While smoking in bars and restaurants was still legal in the Charlotte area, the income relationship was easily observable: about half of the patrons in "dives" smoked (and yes, I occasionally went to such establishments); but almost nobody at high-dollar places did.

So, refusing to hire smokers may in fact be more of a problem for less well-off, less well-educated, and less intelligent people. To that, I say: tough luck. If I were hiring people (as a sole proprietor, I'm not), I certainly wouldn't hire a smoker, even an off-duty-only smoker. The odds are his or health absences will be more frequent, and that his or her healthcare costs will be more. Plus, of course, they stink. The unemployment rate remains stubbornly high, so employees can afford to be more selective, and picking non-smokers is an obvious choice.

As opposed to state and local laws banning smoking in certain areas, the refusal of companies to hire smokers is a free-market decision. It works for me.

[OKRA2012]

“As opposed to state and local laws banning smoking in certain areas, the refusal of companies to hire smokers is a free-market decision. It works for me.”

That should be the way it is.

[Orangedog]

Smokers are drug addicts, but are also much worse the your average drug addict.

Can't wait until your ox is being gored. I'll be there...laughing at you.

[Orangedog]

Well... who's fault is that? Sounds like they have a choice.. either quit smoking and improve your job prospects or don't.

Sure. How about we gore oxen until we get to one or more of yours. Are you fat? Better slim down or hit the help wanted section. How about your wife? Hey, those kids playing school sports are going to cost the insurance policy with all those game related injuries. They can quit or you can. Choose. Hey, wifey got pregnant again..? Congratulations! But she's going to have to terminate the pregnancy because you have too many dependents on your policy. Or you can quit your job. Yeah, I know we're in a depression and your chances of finding any job at your age are nil, but it's your choice.

It's going to be fun watching you guys when it's your turn. And make no mistake, your turn is coming. And don't expect any help or sympathy from current or former smokers.

[Orangedog]

The decline in smoking is impressive, but 18.9% of U.S. adults strikes me as high -- it's more like 2% of the people I know.

Ah, it's not happening to you and yours so break out the tar and feathers!

[Orangedog]

These people wouldn’t recognize a slippery slope if they were on skis.

I stopped smoking years ago, but I refuse to join in the stoning smokers get. As someone who has been a smoker, divorced father and home owner who has to work for a living, I know a thing or two about being a political red-headed step child. It's going to be entertaining when the mob turns on them.

[Hot Tabasco]

the refusal of companies to hire smokers is a free-market decision. It works for me.”

That should be the way it is.

Then you obviously have no problem with an employer choosing not to hire blacks, hispanics and even the dreaded christians.......

So what is YOUR perfect world like OKRA?

[ScottinVA]

You all are making wayyy too much of my statement. If employers want to hire smokers, then by all means, more power to them. But my point is... should they be forced to hire them? If so, is the government the enforcing authority?

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Let's fire the people who cost insurance the most, people with kids!

Not to mention it is the germs the parents spread from their little petti dishes that make the rest of us sick.

No, I am not just talking about moms either, dad is just as much a carrier of their disgusting little diseases.

Anyone with children will not be hired. Anyone who is around children on a regular basis must go though a through decontamination and have not been in contact with children for 24 hours before coming into work.

[OKRA2012]

“So what is YOUR perfect world like OKRA?”

A world where private industry can operate without government dictating to the who they must hire.

[Orangedog]

It’s not about forcing them to hire anyone. It’s the dogpile on a group of vilified people that’s tacky. I told people who were cheering on the lawyers and state AGs during the tobacco jihad of the 1990s that their day was coming. It always works that way once the mob mentality gets whipped up.

[Hot Tabasco]

operate without government dictating to the who they must hire.

I remember those days, bathrooms designated black or white, restaurants choosing not to serve negroes.......

So that's the government freedom you support?

Like it or not you're part of the problem in this country, not the solution.....

[Gabz]

Companies aren't just singling out overweight employees. Staffers who smoke are under fire too.

What nonsense - they began doing this to smokers more than a decade ago.

An employer is within his right to choose he wants to hire, just as employees can choose who they wish to employ them.

[Gabz]

Well... who's fault is that? Sounds like they have a choice.. either quit smoking and improve your job prospects or don't.

By the same token, such employers are eliminating the possiblity of hiring the greatest employee they ever had. But to each his own.