My former employer, the University of Pennsylvania Health System, no longer hires tobacco users. It has joined a growing group of employers, including many health systems, that discriminate against smokers on the grounds that such employees cost the employer money (through loss in productivity) or, in the case of medical institutions, act against the health promoting values of the employer.
Such policies might be well-intentioned, but they are misguided and ethically muddled. As much as I like the idea of incentivizing people to kick the habit, denying jobs to qualified people because they smoke is not an appropriate intervention…(Read more and view comments at Forbes)
Banning Smoking in Parks and Beaches
A July article from Health Affairs published just how many parks and beaches in United States have banned smoking, since 1993. The picture for US parks is below:
These bans have grown in popularity even though the risk of secondhand smoke is dramatically reduced outdoors. In fact, many US parks are quite large, from what I’ve seen, and it is verging on the draconian for public health officials to be adopting these bans with such increasing frequency.
I would prefer, instead, significantly stiffer penalties for littering, while clearly warning people that abandoned cigarette butts are a form of litter.
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