New York Times- Smokers now face another risk from their habit: it could cost them a shot at a job. More hospitals and medical businesses in many states are adopting strict policies that make smoking a reason to turn away job applicants, saying they want to increase worker productivity, reduce health care costs and encourage healthier living. The policies reflect a frustration that softer efforts — like banning smoking on company grounds, offering cessation programs and increasing health care premiums for smokers — have not been powerful-enough incentives to quit. The new rules essentially treat cigarettes like an illegal narcotic. Applications now explicitly warn of “tobacco-free hiring,” job seekers must submit to urine tests for nicotine and new employees caught smoking face termination. Click for full article.
I guess because it's the medical field this might almost make sense. I remember leaving a hospital and seeing a nurse, on her break, ripping a cigarette and laughing at the irony. But, if you go to school and graduate with a degree in medicine and still feel OK about smoking, then why shouldn't you be able to get the job you want? Seems like it'll start with the hospital staffs and then branch out to other job sectors, where the employers will start claiming that employees are wasting too much time taking breaks outside. To which I say, if you let them smoke at their desks/offices, they wouldn't need to be wasting time out of the office. You can't have it both ways. The country allows the sale and taxation of a highly-addictive, legal drug, but soon, it might cost people a job? What sense does that make?
Throw your thoughts in the comment section, or email and I'll argue with you.
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