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Hiring Smokers Banned In South Florida City
Penurious Penguin writes "On October 2, City Commissioners of Delray Beach finalized a policy which prohibits agencies from hiring employees who use tobacco products. Delray Beach isn't alone though; other Florida cities such as Hollywood and Hallandale Beach, require prospective employees to sign affidavits declaring themselves tobacco-free for 12 months prior to the date of application. Throughout the states, both
government and businesses are moving to ban tobacco-use beyond working hours. Many medical facilities, e.g. hospitals, have implemented or intend to implement similar policies. In some more-aggressive environments referred to as nicotine-free, employee urine-samples can be taken and tested for any presence of nicotine, not excluding that from gum or patches. Employees testing positive can be terminated. Times do change, and adaptation is often a necessary burden. But have they changed so much that we'd now postpone the Manhattan project for 12 months because Oppenheimer had toked his pipe? Would we confine our vision to the Milky Way or snub the 1373 Cincinnati because Hubble smoked his? Would we shun relativity, or shelve the works of Tolkien because he and C. S. Lewis had done the same? If so, then where will it stop?"
Why not just make smoking illegal? The policy seams to be that it is bad and that should not do it, so maybe it should be enforced.
Tobacco products complying with the world’s first plain-packaging laws started arriving in Australia’s stores around Oct. 1.
New government standards set out the images and health warnings that must cover 75 percent of the front of cigarette packs. Among them: a gangrenous foot, a tongue cancer, a toilet stained with bloody urine, and a skeletal man named Bryan who is dying of lung cancer. Further warnings must appear on the sides and cover 90 percent of the back.
The High Court of Australia in August dismissed a claim by British American Tobacco (BTI), Philip Morris (MO), Imperial Tobacco, and Japan Tobacco International that the law illegally seizes their intellectual property by banning the display of trademarks. Appeals have also been lodged by Honduras, Ukraine, and the Dominican Republic at the World Trade Organization, claiming the law restricts the tobacco trade.
Cigarette makers are right to fear the regulations, says David Hammond, an expert in tobacco rules at the University of Waterloo in Canada: “Once tobacco control measures are established in one country, they spread.”
-1 troll is not supposed to be used simply because you don't agree
Now Tobacco/Nicotine, soon to come:
Meat eaters need not apply, only strict vegetarians. The risk of eating high fat dietary items carries a higher risk of medical issues.
For some strange reason, nicotine addiction is viewed in society as acceptable. If someone would stop working every few hours and go out for a drink they would be called an alcoholic and fired quickly. Yet when others take 'smoke breaks' with the same frequency noone seems to care. It's not a problem when you smoke every now and then (at least it's not my problem), but if you can't survive without nicotine for 8 hours that's a serious addiction.
I couldn't stand the highly technical coding I do for a job without my periodic "Cigarette Break". Every couple of hours I go outside into fresh air, light up a cig, see some daylight, and let my mind relax for a moment, to recharge for another 2 hour bout of the highly quantitative stuff I do. Nobody should be hired/fired or not based on whether they smoke cigarettes. ------ Yes, cigarettes are not good for you in the long run. But it isn't anybody's business what you do or don't do with your own body. ---- It is idiotic how harshly non-smokers try to wean smokers off cigarettes. Tobacco products are not illegal. Nobody has a right to tell me that I can't smoke if I want to "keep my job".
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
Or at least not the cancer causing problem. The tarry tobacco smoke builds up inside your lungs and prevents them from cleaning themselves properly. While nicotine does have circulatory implications its not transmissable by touch as far as I'm aware. Applying tests typical for contraband narcotics is not justifiable unless nicotine use is ruled as a hazard or detrimental to productivity or health and safety.
Fark has a section dedicated to Florida for a reason I guess.
that's the real reason from the article.
so next up, banning for anything else that kicks up the insurance a notch.
had a heart attack? don't apply. high risk sports? forget about it. maybe they should have instead asked for the employee to pony up the extras for the health insurance.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
If the rest of us are going to pay for their health care through insurance, we deserve the right to shut them off from their carcinogenic cigarettes.
There is a bit of a slippery slope here. If diet soft drinks cause cancer, we should have the right to shut those off, too. At some point, we're going to find certain genes are responsible for susceptibility to cancer too (well beyond the 17% of smokers who get lung cancer). We should have the right to shut them out, too.
Right?
Futurist Traditionalism
I don't like cigarettes; in fact, I despise them.
But what the hell? Why should we be telling people what they can do in their own lives outside working hours? Especially when such activities are legal?
What's next? NO ALCOHOL USE EITHER! Can't even go out to the bar with friends on a weekend because you might lose your job?
Riding a motorcycle is risky to your health as well. CAN'T DO THAT EITHER.
This is one HELL of a slippery slope and we should all be greatly concerned about it.
This is just ridiculous. We need federal laws specifying that an employer has no right to dictate or ask what employees does when they're not working.
If they want control over workers 24/7 and need to control their future health, it isn't called employment, but something else, which already is illegal.
If I want to spend my time off doing things people don't like, that shouldn't be anyone's business but mine. Whether it's smoking, skydiving, wild orgies, satanic rituals, or all of that at the same time.
Here in Uruguay, we've had that for a couple of years, I think. A quick google images search of "uruguay paquetes de cigarrillos" will show you what that will look like (only the ones in Spanish are Uruguayan: www.google.com/search?q=uruguay paquetes de cigarrillos&tbm=isch).
They say that, in conjunction with a broad prohibition of smoking everywhere inside, it's working very well, esp. with young people
Well I'm addicted to caffeine, my nephew is addicted to world of warcraft. My dad's addicted to hard work, he can't relax.
I think you've just heard 'addicted to crack' so often that you're putting too much weight on the word 'addicted'. Nicotine addition isn't a big problem to society, it's the *tar* that's the big problem in cigarettes. The nicotine is just a problem in that it makes them smoke and smoking is bad m-kay.
Coffee addition IS acceptable, not just VIEWED AS. There's nothing wrong with needing a coffee, even less than 8 hours.
I bet you're not so perfect that someone doesn't need to cut YOU some slack.
I wonder how many of the smokers never voted against politicians who made the war on drugs, and particularly drug testing in the workplace, part of their campaign platform.
First they came for the coke fiends, but I didn't speak out because....
you know how it goes.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
I'm an ardent anti-smoker but that doesn't lead me to support idiotic employment rules. The overall problem of health care (and guess what: I support single-payer) really should be none of a company's business. So long as the employee gets his work done, is reliable, and doesn't adversely affect his cow-orkers, what he does off the clock is his business. I have no problem with a company banning tobacco use on company property&time (or banning alcohol; and I wish they'd ban cube radios playing country music too), but testing employees for off-work use of either legal or controlled substances should be flat out illegal.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
''if you can't survive without nicotine for 8 hours that's a serious addiction.''
I have noticed you, friend, leaving your cubicle frequently to urinate. Sometimes you even stop in the hallways and greet others, as if to compound this waste of valuable productive time. But then you have been observed stopping yet again -- for a big long gulp of water. Clearly this is an abusive cycle and you know that ingestion of water leads directly to urination, it's a fact.
If you'd just sip a cup of water at your desk, no more than your body needs, you could easily make the 8 hours without wasting the company's time.
Don't you think it's time you got some help??
So, It's illegal to refuse to hire somebody because of sexual orientation,skin color, country or origin,religion, and a bunch of other stuff. But it's ok to discriminate based on after-hours smoke-inhaling? The world is fucking stupid.
Don't get me wrong, I believe any business should be allowed to hire whoever the fuck they want,and discriminate based on anything, even race and other protected characteristics. If you don't wanna hire black people, smokers, or homosexuals, it's up to you. I refuse to hire religious idiots, and it's my fucking right too.
But the government belongs to EVERYBODY, so the government CAN'T engage in such discriminatory activities. And they can't promote it. Blacks, Jews and Woman have acquired equal rights, and are rarely discriminated anymore. Homosexuals are towards that goal. Right now, the single most attacked and discriminated group are smokers. Marijuana users aren't as discriminated against as tobacco smokers. WTF
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
This is what decent people get for putting up with drug tests.
How hard is it to understand that fascists will never stop taking more?
This is what slippery slopes arguments do best: show us the ultimate conclusion of our present path.
However, I'm not sure we'll even get to such a healthy place. If we're going to go Nietzschean, and implement an uebermensch, humanity will be better for it!
But instead we're going to penalize anyone who does anything other than conform, and claim it's progress.
Compared to what we will do, Aktion T4 and The Eugenics Movement are at least whole plans.
We'll just chip away at "negatives" until we're left with the Nietzschean last man, who lives to work, consume and die with no greater depth of thought than Honey Boo-Boo.
Futurist Traditionalism
You are right. They let them keep their logos, the only prohibition on brands is that they can't have "modifiers" like a Light version and stuff, they need to sell each version with a new brand name. Of course, they can't advertise on tv, on the streets, and inside the shops all signs also have the ugly images.
They were talking on tv last week about a decrease of more than half of teenage smokers. When al this started I thought it was nonsense, but it's funny how it works. Smokers tend to hide their boxes, because they are unpleasant, and they don't keep them in sight of kids. They even tend to smoke more privately. It should come naturally, without the offensive images, but they seem to work.
While I hate tobacco with every fiber of my being. It killed my grandfather, and my cousin's on his way there too. Not to mention I'm allergic to it and with enough exposure to tobacco smoke I start sneezing, getting a sore throat, etc.. I find this a complete and total violation of a person's rights. Fine that they don't smoke around me, or at work. But they should be able to smoke as much as they want in their own privacy.
Among them: a gangrenous foot, a tongue cancer, a toilet stained with bloody urine, and a skeletal man named Bryan who is dying of lung cancer.
In the US some of us would have to collect the whole set.
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
C. S. Lewis
That's how it sounds for me. (Sorry for bringing up Godwin's Law so early.)
The next logical step is, of course, to exterminate all overweight people. Or, just don't give them a job, which is about the same in the US.
Tying employment to health insurance has lots of downsides, and this is one of them. Without that coupling, there would typically be no reason for employers to know anything at all about what you do in private outside of working hours.
I'm not a smoker. I hate the smell. But I don't agree with this. The last time I checked tobacco was legal to purchase and use. If it's a question of health insurance costs then what's next? Should we also exclude hiring people that are overweight, or have high blood pressure, or their lipid count is too high? Because surely they will consume health care dollars at some point too. What about people that have too much stress? Exclude them too? What happens if nobody will hire people that smoke? Should we just categorize them as permanently disabled and have society support them...or maybe just send them to a leper colony?
This is a clear example of exactly why I don't want employers involved with health insurance. Sooner or later it comes down to money and then things like this happen.
Personally I think that alcohol is a far, far greater problem to society than tobacco. Here is an indisputable fact - 100% of all drunk driving accidents and deaths are caused by alcohol. All of them...every single one. I can't prove this but my feeling is that a good percentage of assaults and domestic violence incidents are fueled, at least in part, by alcohol. In nearly every bar fight I have ever seen both of them were drunk. I'm not suggesting that alcohol has the same effect on everyone but it sure messes up a lot of people.
Smoking is bad for you no question. Anyone that smokes should try to quit. People can get addicted to tobacco much like people can get addicted to alcohol. Instead of excluding tobacco users from the work force why not try to help them quit? If a smoker has the qualifications then hire them but tell them, look we'd rather you didn't smoke. Science has proven that it's bad for your health and we'd rather have healthy workers than unhealthy workers. It's better for you and it's better for us. So here's what we're going to do. We have a smoking cessation program and we'd like you to attend it. It's going to be part of your on-boarding process. We're going to pay for it and our expectation is that at the end of it you're going to be tobacco free. We're doing this because we think you'd be a good employee and we like to treat our employees right. At the end of it you're going to thank us. Your children will thank you because you'll live long enough to see their children. You'll feel better about yourself and that's the kind of people we want working here. What do you say?
Being bad for you is NO JUSTIFICATION for making something illegal.
People should be free to seek happiness, even if the mechanism of doing so is self-destructive. That includes the freedom to overeat, sit around and relax instead of exercise, spend too much time keeping their skin tan, watching movies/TV that makes them stupid, and on and on.
When your pleasure-seeking causes direct and significant harm to others, THEN you have a case for making it illegal. If it only harms yourself, self-determinacy trumps the nanny-state (or should, at least).
I will add, from a completely practical perspective, that when you make highly-desired goods illegal you create black markets (because humans make lousy slaves). The black markets then funnel significant money into the hands of criminals who have no qualms about murdering people to maintain their power base. Not only must I then live with these threats, but my tax money gets spent on more law enforcement which is generally ineffective no matter how much is spent and which takes away even MORE of my freedom in order to search for crime. So...making these things illegal causes very direct harm to me...much greater harm than keeping them legal causes me (should I free choose not to indulge).
Or maybe it disgusts you! Heh heh heh. Don't mind me. I'm really just guessing when I look into the heart of my fellow man. If there's anyone you shouldn't lie to, it's yourself.
I think it's an inherently self-destructive thing, smoking. That the only reason you can start in the face of the evidence that it will eventually kill you, and the only reason to keep doing it, is that you are in some way depressed with your life. It's easier to not smoke when you are satisfied with how everything is going. When I'm at my most miserable, that's when I want a smoke and that's when it's hardest to resist and damn the consequences. But unlike most nicotine addicts, I can smoke a cigarette and then walk away and not touch tobacco again for years. Not that I'd want to do that. I smoked a pipe when I was younger and technically never quit, I just haven't done it in years. At the heaviest, I might do that a couple of times a week. I eventually realized that every time I smoked, I had a VERY nasty headache the next day and stopped on my own.
Caffeine on the other hand... I quit that once... withdrawal was a bitch -- headaches, nightmares, chills, hot flashes, lasted about a week. I felt great afterwards. That lasted all of about three months until I had to stay up late one night. We all have our vices. I'm glad mine seems to be relatively mild.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I hate smoking personally but this sort of restriction is discrimination, imo. You should not be able to have laws that stop you from hiring people for using legal products unless there is a clear case that it will hinder performance (like alcoholism). America is definitely not the land of the free now.
Making meat consumption illegal is not a likely consequence of making tobacco illegal.
However, both are equally absurd. Adults should be free to make their own decisions about their own health, choosing their own trade-offs between short-term pleasure and long-term consequences. The government should be stepping in to protect this important freedom, by preventing companies from screening/punishing employees for what they do on their own time.
I'm posting this once instead of replying to the 45 or so posts that mention this. Smokers do not raise your insurance premiums.
I'll repeat for emphasis:
*Smokers do not raise your insurance premiums.*
Smokers pay higher insurance premiums because they are in a different risk pool. You might be paying higher premiums for fat people, but the moment one of those tubsters develops diabetes or whatever, their premiums go up, so you're not paying as much as you think. Under Obamacare, granted, that changes slightly, because the law now makes it more difficult for insurance companies to raise premiums on policy holders who develop ongoing health issues. But smokers are already paying higher premiums just for smoking, before they even get in the doctor's office door.
So, you are not paying for smokers' health insurance premiums. Get off your respective high horses. And loosen up, god, you must be the people who go to a party and complain about the music being too loud.
Also, this is how you know that south Florida is not actually part of the South. It's actually a southern colony of Connecticut, and should be treated accordingly.
Also also, if you live in a country with socialized medicine, you may very well be paying for smokers via taxes, but they're also probably paying a ton of tax on cigarettes, so get over yourself, commie.
This unbiased moderation brought to you by the Porcine Aviation Group!
My my, what a load of little totalitarianists we have on Slashdot.
It seems so easy for some power hungry and repressed social misfits to suggest bringing the force of the armed government thugs down on any little habit they don't like these days. Yeah, let's SWAT raid someone's house because they chewed some tobacco. Great idea.
I'm seeing a lot of idiots here that are happy to call for enforcement at the job, off the job and now let's make it against the law altogether to smoke.
Please, take a look again at the United States Declaration of independence:
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Stated another way, it is the right of the people to abolish ANY government that becomes destructive to the people's pursuit of Life, Liberty and Happiness.
Happiness is always subjective and temporal. You cannot predict it, calculate it or mandate happiness. It belongs to the individual and the closest we can come to quantifying it is by allowing an unhampered economy to perform economic calculations and examine prices of ends and means relative to one another. Such an economy will deliver the most happiness to the greatest number of people.
Furthermore how can you be posting on Slashdot? Ye readers of ignorant of classic science fiction. Have you not read your Asimov? You cannot and should not go down the road where you try to protect humans from all risk. It leads to a life not worth living. Unfortunately, all of you little Hitler, Stalin or Mussolini wannabes will realize a little too late that you won't be the man or woman in charge of the oppressive government you try to construct and if you succeed, you will have lives not worth living by your own hands.
Liberty.
If you don't need to urinate in an 8 hour stretch you are dehydrated. Water is the most fundamental chemical needed by the human body and you are comparing this with cravings caused by a drug addition.
Also sitting in a seat without break for 8 hours isn't very healthy either.
Haha! Now you have to choose whether to continue your filthy, digusting, annoying and unhealthy habit or be unemployed. You fatties are next!
First they came for the smokers, but I was not a smoker so I did not care.
Then they came for the fatties, but I was thin and did not care.
Then they came for a the trolls, oh shit, you're fucked.
Not sure about anyone else but this is a federal lawsuit just waiting to happen. To say you can't hire someone that smokes is kinda discrimination.
Isn't it astounding how many of the "problems" involving health care financing that show up at Slashdot would be solved with single-payer, or regulation of medical insurance companies so that the system is functionally single-payer? And that 33 of 34 OECD countries have figured that out? And just coincidentally, that those 33 all have substantially lower spending for similar (and in several cases superior) health outcomes than the US?
Not to mention that a single-payer system that brought health-care spending into line with the rest of the world would free up substantial amounts to support research in areas such as fusion, space, etc?
Cigarette makers are right to fear the regulations...
You should too. Everyone engages in some behavior that the majority doesn't approve of. Everyone. Smokers are just another outlier group -- but gays, atheists, occupy protesters, white supremacists... every time an election rolls around, policians scramble to find a group people can all agree to hate together to earn votes. That's democracy for you: Two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner.
There's reasonable legislation that protects the public interest while respecting individual liberty, and then there's shit like this. Most anti-smoking legislation has been enacted within the past 5--7 years due to a groundswell of popular support. In 5--7 years, that support will have moved on to another group to hate, but yet another precident will have been set by then. Let me give you some examples of reasonable versus extreme. Disclaimer: Most of the numbers below are from memory. This was a popular discussion to have at the time the bans went into effect, so I put considerable research time into it. But it is still just from memory. Also: I'm making no attempt here to justify subjective beliefs about whether smoking smells bad, or whether I like it or not...
Restaurants
Many jurisdictions have banned smoking in bars and restaurants. After those bans were passed, business dropped off by 10-30%. In the state I live in (Minnesota), downtown Minneapolis on a saturday night seemed like a ghost town after the ban went into effect. It hasn't fully recovered since. Contrary to popular myth, there are a lot of social smokers out there, or people who only smoke when they drink. Bars in particular suffered horribly after the bans -- because it was during a recession and many people decided to just get liquor from the store and smoke out on the back porch at a friends' place. Check the numbers if you don't believe me: Look at noise complaints in the months since the ban, keyword search 'party' or 'alcohol'. 8% spike over the same time frame the previous year (caution: numbers provided by police are typically absolute! Convert to per capita and using best available census data for precincts or it's not a valid comparison.)
It's been several years now since the bans went into effect up here. Many had argued that non-smokers would fill up the bars and restaurants, flocking to the new "clean air". They never showed up. As it turns out, "clean air" was not on the top 10 list of "Reasons To Go Drinking Tonight." Go figure. Businesses have bourne the cost of enforcing the ban, and the only public health benefit claimed was for employees. Well, we send people into coal mines and other industrial environments, telling people who take those jobs of the possible health risks: But we don't ban those environments or jobs. Why is capitalism allowed there, but not in restaurants? Food for thought.
Public Parks
Banning smoking in outdoor areas seems silly to me because standing more than a few feet away reduces the amount of smoke a person breathes to a few PPM. Second-hand smoke studies have all focused on the effects of prolonged exposure in confined areas. It can be argued a ban in crowded areas promotes public health, but not in a sparsely populated outdoor park. If there is to be a ban in public areas, it should be only in areas where people regularly assemble; There is no public health benefit from banning smoking in the great outdoors.
Near Building Entrances
Yes. Agree. People certainly should be given the option to avoid smoke; And smokers do tend to congregate near building entrances. Setting a minimum distance is a prudent measure.
In private residences
Again: Businesses suffer. It should be allowable for a building owner to prohibit smoking on the grounds, even in apartment buildings or private residences; And in fact it was never illegal to specify this condition in the tenant leasing agreements of our state. But few landlords put such agreements in place because there
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Being bad for you is NO JUSTIFICATION for making something illegal.
In some societies, the concept that we are our brothers' keeper is very strong.
In these societies, if something is bad for someone then that's enough justification to outlaw it.
In Western societies we don't go that far, but in America we do protect people from intentionally or in some cases carelessly maiming themselves by denying them the opportunity. We not only outlaw many recreational drugs whose only harm to others is that you will be too intoxicated to hold down a decent job thereby hurting the economy. We also generally deny people the right to commit suicide on the grounds that others will be hurt, even in cases where you have no loved ones who will miss you. We deny people the right to do dangerous-to-themselves things without using safety equipment, getting trained, or in some cases getting a license, all for the primary purpose of preventing people from hurting themselves.
Heck, a few years ago in at least one US state, I wasn't even allowed to ride a motorcycle without a helmet even if I was independently wealthy and wouldn't be a financial burden on society if I wrecked out and wound up in a nursing home for the rest of my life. I'm still not allowed to drive a car unless I buckle up even if I'm rich enough to pay for lifetime medical are out-of-pocket.
If I were a strict libertarian this would drive me nuts. However, I'm more of a pragmatist and I'm not totally against "the government" telling me what I can and cannot do when it comes to personal safety. BUT I insist on society as a whole coming to a consensus that these rules are not only necessary but helpful and that there is no less-intrusive alternative. I also insist that certain exceptions, such as for sincere religious practices, be granted. I also insist that such restrictions be re-evaluated regularly - at least once a generation - to see if they are still needed, helpful, and reflect social consensus and to see if there is no less-intrusive alternative.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
A few commenters have pointed out some other things that "should be banned" because they're unhealthy. We've seen studies finding things like high-fructose corn syrup and and excessive fat consumption can be unhealthy for you. We've known for a long time about mercury content in tuna, and now we've just learned about arsenic in rice. Maybe those should be banned. At the same time, phthalates in PVC-based flooring are okay, despite the fact that they're correlated with autism and infertility. And why can you still buy plastic food containers made with BPA?
The cigarette I'd have once a year at a party isn't going to do me a damn bit of harm. Yet if my employer instituted this policy, and I just happened to have smoked my yearly cigarette before a random test, I'd be fired. (Of course, I haven't smoked anything in years, since having kids, but that's for their sake, not mine.) The thing is, a majority of people who get into tobacco quickly develop an addiction. Or so we're told. I'm betting the odds are high, but not like 90%. The dilemma we have to face is whether or not we want to limit tobacco use for everyone on the basis of a significant number of people who will develop an unhealthy dependence that costs tax-payer money (inevitably). But this is how a lot of laws come into being. Some moron blasts his fingers off playing with model rockets, and all of a sudden, the rest of us face mountains of paperwork to engage in a hobby that we'd already been doing safely. (Putting aside the fact that anyone getting into model rocketry right now is likely to be labeled as a terrorist.)
My view is this: The US government is already not very good at "protecting" us from all sorts of contaminants that find their way into our food, water, and air. They're probably better than many other governments, but the fact that florination is still in many water supplies, water bottles can still be made with BPA, and you can still buy home building materials that are known to cause developmental problems in children all mean that our wanna-be nanny government is lying own on the job. Oh, and let's not forget the carbon monoxide and benzine from exhaust you love to enhale at every bus depot and airport.
So before any laws are passed to limit the use of chemicals we can choose to ingest or not, we should first address the contaminants that are being hidden from us by unscrupulous suppliers.
Where does it stop?
You have an allergy to tobacco smoke, so it's okay to ban tobacco -- okay, you won't find too many objections.
Some people have an allergy to peanuts -- some incredibly sever, far worse than any tobacco smoke allergy. Should we ban peanuts? Maybe it makes sense in schools. Maybe that should be extended to other gov't buildings or business that serve the general public.
I have an allergy to the base in some perfumes -- my nose runs constantly, my eyes tear up, it's very unpleasant. Should we ban perfume? I'm on board!
How about this: We err on the side of freedom. Let businesses decide to allow or not allow smoking, peanuts, or perfume. We consider any policy that discriminates against workers for engaging in legal activity (smoking, eating peanuts, wearing perfume) outside of work to be unlawful.
Required reading for internet skeptics
You have the freedom to smoke, and the have the freedom not to hire you.
Fugue for Aaron Swartz
You do realize that second hand smoke is not the only problem, there is also the residue, which is just as likely a problem as the peanut oil you talk about, but even worst, because it does not just stick to your hands but your entire clothes and then falls off. As for the last bit and where did I get it from, a quote from you: "We consider any policy that discriminates against workers for engaging in legal activity (smoking, eating peanuts, wearing perfume) outside of work to be unlawful." Drinking outside of work is a legal activity, but we dont allow it for lunch, or for people to come in drunk.. I am not an anti-smoking zealot, I dont smoke, and hate to be around smoke because it makes me sick, however I will hang around my friends when they smoke if I want to.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
To be honest, I think this anti-tobacco policy probably runs afoul of Federal anti-discrimination law.
I don't know the exact wording of the law, but in business law in college I was taught that you can't discriminate against people for engaging in legal practices that do not directly affect the job.
With few exceptions, tobacco use does not have a direct detrimental effect on workers' performance. In fact studies have generally shown smokers to be more productive than their non-smoking counterparts. (Though nobody is saying that smoking is the actual cause of that.)
So according to what my law Prof. told me, this is definitely an illegal practice. I can't wait for somebody to sue the pants off of some self-righteous company.
Where does it stop?
You have an allergy to tobacco smoke, so it's okay to ban tobacco -- okay, you won't find too many objections.
Some people have an allergy to peanuts -- some incredibly sever, far worse than any tobacco smoke allergy. Should we ban peanuts? Maybe it makes sense in schools.
All daycare and K-6 in my area has banned peanuts in schools; no, I was not involved in it, but it beats a daycare worker hitting someone with a low body mass with an adult epipen. It also avoids hitting someone in the middle of a reaction with an epipen, hitting a vein, and causing an instant cerebral aneurism. Many airlines, including Delta, have voluntarily withdrawn peanut products from the in-flight snacks they offer when the flight isn't long enough that they are federally mandated to actually serve meals (or more likely, pick up a sack lunch on the way into the plane),
I have an allergy to the base in some perfumes -- my nose runs constantly, my eyes tear up, it's very unpleasant. Should we ban perfume? I'm on board!
Is it an anaphylactic reaction, or is it one that can be managed with oral H1 and/or H2 blockers? Most planes carry both benedryl (H1) and ranatidine (H2) blockers. But personally, I'd say this one is on you: your reaction comes from an aromatic with environmental exposure, it's generally manageable with over the counter medication, and you are voluntarily placing yourself in the situation where you are getting exposed. From that perspective, it might also be resonable to have DMV workers, court clerks, and other public employees refrain from bringing the allergen into situations where your presence is far less voluntary. Just like aromatized cigarette ash brought in by a smoker.
How about this: We err on the side of freedom. Let businesses decide to allow or not allow smoking, peanuts, or perfume. We consider any policy that discriminates against workers for engaging in legal activity (smoking, eating peanuts, wearing perfume) outside of work to be unlawful.
What about other substances, which I agree should be legalized, and other substances which are currently legal, such as alcohol, which would impair your performance, potentially in life threatening ways for someone? A coked-up lab tech or a drunk taxi driver are things you are only going to catch after the fact, when someone dies.
How about we take your examples to their reductio ad absurdum conclusion instead? How about we only file drunk driving charges when there are damages to person or property, and so long as they don't run over somone or into something, society minds its own business and lets them drive drunk?
Ah yes. Something that always annoyed me intensely in the bad old days when we use to pander to smokers' nasty hobby being acted out in public.
They'd sit purposely holding their cancer stick to the side or behind them, so that it was blowing smoke away from themselves and their companions. After all, who wants smoke wafted in their face, hair and clothes? Not them! Meanwhile, anyone unfortunate enough to be behind or to the side of them would be getting exactly that.
Let them smoke in a closed, unventilated box someplace. Maximize the experience if it's such a joy.
If I was still a smoker and was in a situation where I could be fired for being a tobacco user, I think I would declare my tobacco use to be in honor of Eagle (aka Thunderbird.) And thus, dismissal would be cause for a religious discrimination complaint.
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all the time... What a joke!
May the lies we live by make us strong, healthy, happy and wise - Kurt Vonnegut.