[9YearLurker]

What’s bizarre to me is that smokers ever were a protected class for employment! What’s that about? Are nose pickers in Kentucky protected too?

[hanamizu]

Are nose pickers in Kentucky protected too?

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My semi-educated guess is that since KY is, or at least was, a big tobacco state, that the protected-class status began when the anti-tobacco movement started gaining power. Still see lots of tobacco barns when we travel on I-24, but not nearly as much tobacco in the fields as say 20 years ago.