I was told I was not allowed to smoke because The Corps were not allowed to smoke.
Martindale's revelation envisioned thousands and thousands coming to twi, taking their classes, abundant sharing at 15%, etc.........but that did NOT happen. The added financial weight of all corps on twi's payroll was tipping twi's financial scales in a downward trend.
The mandate of NO SMOKING......was the first step to stop the financial hemmorhaging. In a static situation, twi mandated every cost control measure to slow down the red ink.
No Smoking --- did NOT apply to Don Wierwille.
It's nice to be in the ruling class.
In today's world is.........SMOKERS NEED NOT APPLY the beginning of a tread?
The beginning......of healthcare micro-management?
In Ohio, it's illegal to smoke in public places, including bars. Lots of companies have had smoke free policies for years and even decades.
Apples and oranges in comparison.
Smoking in designated areas as opposed to SMOKERS NEED NOT APPLY.......wowsers!!!
If you are a smoker.........no job here for you.
If you are a smoker.........company healthcare costs will rise, so don't bother wanting to work here.
If you are a smoker.........what if all companies go this route?
YET........in the link above, those hospital workers that are smokers.....that's okay. But the new standard is that Bethlehem hospital will no longer hire you if you smoke. And, they will check you for nicotine to certify.
There are many companies here that will not hire you if you are a smoker. My wife worked for a company, about 10 years ago, that fired people for smoking on their off-hours. They cited insurance costs as their justification.
Obese people need not apply---leads to heart disease, high blood pressure,diabetes, arthritis, or anyone who has more than two drinks at any given time...
Obese people need not apply---leads to heart disease, high blood pressure,diabetes, arthritis, or anyone who has more than two drinks at any given time...
Well Rejoice, you took the words right out of my mouth. It is, after all, a LEGAL product. If smokers are targeted, there are so many other groups as well. Drinkers, sun tanners, etc, etc, Besides, insurance already raises the fee for smokers as is.
I hate smoking, I really do. It's a nasty habit I wish I never picked up. But if I were in the position of having to find another job, I just wouldn't bother with a place that didn't hire smokers. No loss to me. Any job that is that controlling over your personal life is not one I would want to be a part of. Back in my temping days (boy am I glad those days are over) I've had assignments at a lot of these controlling places and I know what these control-freak places are like. I couldn't wait to get the hell out of some of them, and was grateful when the "assignment" was over.
They were usually extremely anal jerks, who usually based their own worth on "not being as bad as somebody else." Or I should say as what they perceived of as being bad. And believe me, people can get very self-righteous when it comes to smokers.
Not people I would even want to associate with at all.
I thought I saw the height of hypocrisy when I just happened to be skimming job ads a few years back, before I started my present job, and saw a Harley Shop advertising for workers, (it was some corporate office I think) and had a very strong anti-smoking policy. Who are they kidding? Trying to pretend Harley customers are wholesome, Disney World characters?
YET........in the link above, those hospital workers that are smokers.....that's okay. But the new standard is that Bethlehem hospital will no longer hire you if you smoke. And, they will check you for nicotine to certify.
I'm not sure how I feel about that...
[Full disclosure: I smoked about a pack a day for almost 20 years. On April 3rd it will be 18 years since I quit.]
While I was a smoker I tried to quit unsuccessfully several times, but what really motivated me to quit was when I started working for a hospital in 1991. Smokers had to go outside to smoke and standing in cold, wet weather greeting non-smokers as they came and went made me feel like a total loser. So much so that I decided that was it -- I went to hypnosis and I quit. It was the best thing I ever did in my life health-wise.
Anyway, unless the drug test uses the hair-sample method, you can beat it by not smoking for a few days before the test and flushing out your system with lots of water. Hair sample tests are virtually impossible to beat since traces of certain substances can remain in your hair weeks or months after consumption. (Yeah, I know it's very difficult to quit smoking for even a day, but how badly do you want the job?
P.S. The hospital I worked for did have pre-employment drug screening so I had to quit using all other substances for a few weeks. Fortunately, nicotine wasn't one of the substances they tested for. :)
I quit smoking before we went in FWC but I missed it for a while in times of stress. Then I worked for 8 years at a cancer hospital. Listen to someone whose lungs are filled with tumors, blood, and fluid try to breathe and you will definitely think again.
I think a private company has the right to decide based on cost controls. Smoking is one of the biggies when it comes to health care costs. I don't think it is discrimination; you cannot control the color of your skin, but you make the decision to smoke or not.
The hospital where I worked offered free smoking cessation programs to its employees, but some of them smoked anyway. Then the hospital system decided to build a nice garden atrium for smokers and invited the cancer hospital to pay for part of it. Needless to say, they refused. Now the entire campus is allegedly smoke-free, though of course there are still people who stand around in their hospital gowns, holding onto their IV poles for balance, while sucking on a cigarette.
Well Rejoice, you took the words right out of my mouth. It is, after all, a LEGAL product. If smokers are targeted, there are so many other groups as well. Drinkers, sun tanners, etc, etc, Besides, insurance already raises the fee for smokers as is.
I hate smoking, I really do. It's a nasty habit I wish I never picked up. But if I were in the position of having to find another job, I just wouldn't bother with a place that didn't hire smokers. No loss to me. Any job that is that controlling over your personal life is not one I would want to be a part of. Back in my temping days (boy am I glad those days are over) I've had assignments at a lot of these controlling places and I know what these control-freak places are like. I couldn't wait to get the hell out of some of them, and was grateful when the "assignment" was over.
They were usually extremely anal jerks, who usually based their own worth on "not being as bad as somebody else." Or I should say as what they perceived of as being bad. And believe me, people can get very self-righteous when it comes to smokers.
Not people I would even want to associate with at all.
I thought I saw the height of hypocrisy when I just happened to be skimming job ads a few years back, before I started my present job, and saw a Harley Shop advertising for workers, (it was some corporate office I think) and had a very strong anti-smoking policy. Who are they kidding? Trying to pretend Harley customers are wholesome, Disney World characters?
Harley bikes are very very costly Rottie I know a few owners and trust me they all have incomes in the six or 7 figure class. I agree the corp made its name with sense of rebel without a cause idea yet reality is they market the elite and wealthy class. who often do not smoke.
I have become poor lately and I smoke. In a sense I believe this is wrong (the ruling on no hire) Smokers in New york pay HUGE tax on cigereets they are 8 dollars a pack or more. I heard minimum wage just became the same price as a pack of cigs. I believe that enough is enough. If we chose to live in poverty and damage our own health is that proof enough we are capable of making our own choices and have strong enough will power to get any job done? lol
I couldnt apply I smoke and I would get busted for sure. Discrimination? yeah probably but who and what defines that? Im also over weight and young sexy studs do not open doors for me any more Is that discrimination?
There are many companies here that will not hire you if you are a smoker. My wife worked for a company, about 10 years ago, that fired people for smoking on their off-hours. They cited insurance costs as their justification.
I think you've got to view twi's smoking ban together with the other items skyrider mentioned. It was desperate and wrong.
(the hospital article should be another thread all together . . . IMO.)
. . .
No Smoking --- did NOT apply to Don Wierwille.
It's nice to be in the ruling class.
. . .
Wasn't his death cited as the "real reason" for the smoking ban?
Two issues here, after we set aside the smoking-is-expensive-and-bad-for-you issue.
The first is whether or not it is correct to change the rules midstream. I say no. It happens, it's happened to me, and I hate it. Not with smoking but other things.
The second is whether or not you drive away good people with an arbitrary policy. Many years ago, I worked for a Dallas-based company. They decided that implementing a tough no-drugs police would help sell their products. The only problem was that their star programmer, and their only truly productive programmer, couldn't pass the drug test. TWI never cut much slack for anyone who wasn't in the ruling class, assuming that there was always fresh meat to replace anyone that required too much personal accommodation.
Where does it stop, though? Too much sugar can cause diabetes, too much fat can cause heart disease. Are they going to monitor how much someone exercises?
I used to be a smoker and we were not allowed to smoke in the building I worked in so we went outside by the back door. Non-smokers complained because they didn't like us all looking at them when they walked in so we had to move. Apparently some thought we looked like bunch of ruffians or something even though most of us were attorneys, bankers and other type of professionals. I mean, come on! It's one thing to ban smoking in the building, I can understand that; but ridding the area of smokers because you don't want to look at them? That's ridiculous. Like Waysider, I live in Ohio. When they first passed the no smoking law, they were planning on citing truck drivers who smoked in their cabs while driving across Ohio even if they were from another state. It's true! A commercial truck is considered a workplace, and the new law said that you couldn't smoke in a workplace. They backed away from it. I guess it didn't fit well with their initiative to attract businesses to our state. I'm all for quitting smoking believe me. What I'm against is this paternal, self-righteous attitude on the part of the government and others.
By the way, I smoked for about 30 years. Most of that time I was trying to quit. Then one day my heart stopped beating while I was taking a stress test at the doctor's office. I flatlined for 15 seconds and came out of it. I was rushed to the emergency room and eventually was given a pacemaker and sent home. In rare cases patients with new pacemakers may develop a condition called "pericarditis". That is when fluid builds up around the heart and causes pressure. It is very uncomfortable and you become winded with very little activity. Well, guess what? I'm rare! Back to the hospital I went this time in a heck of a lot of pain. They gave me morphine and I said, "God bless the man that invented morphine!" I felt better, soon I felt pretty damn happy...they wouldn't give me any more morphine. I guess I was having way too good of a time so they opted for extra-stength Tylenol...no more fun. Anyway, they put me in a room and that is when I really realized the limits of my own mortality and that some day I would leave this material world. So, as I lie there on the bed staring at the ceiling tile I said a prayer and the prayer was, "This sucks, and I don't ever want to go through this again! So, I quit smoking and that was in February 2005.
It's still amazing to me how the human brain works. , I smoked for about 30 years. But when faced with the reality of out of control suffering I had no problem quitting. Any time a thought would come in to smoke I would almost laugh and say, "Yeah, right! Like I want to go through all that again!" Someone who is into Neuro Linguistic Programming would call that "dropping an anchor". That is where the memory of an event or experience trumps a negative habit and/or begins a new, more positive habit. Why couldn't I quit 20 years ago? I guess because nothing happened that was painful enough to counteract the pleasure of my bad habit of smoking. Still, I think it is possible to quit prior to having to go through an experience like mine. If somehow one could connect with the dangers of smoking emotionally as well as mentally, I think the chances of successfully quitting would be greater. I'm not an expert, this is just my own experience.
So, if you're someone who is trying to quit smoking let me just say to never give up on quitting. It can be done and you are not alone.
I didn't know about the proposed ban on truckers smoking in their cabs. I think that's invasion of privacy, but then I think mandatory seat belt laws are invasion of privacy. I have no problem with people smoking if they want to; at the cancer hospital we used to offer to save them a bed.
I am probably something of a reformed sinner when it comes to smoking. Working at the cancer hospital was one of the scariest experiences of my life. I had been an ex-smoker for years by then but still, the suffering caused by an addiction to anything is pretty bad.
I worked at a hospital in the South where smokers were forced outside, and nonsmokers objected because the smokers were getting a break to go smoke while they weren't allowed breaks for any reason other than a 30 minute lunch (illegal, but true).
Smokers in New york pay HUGE tax on cigereets they are 8 dollars a pack or more. I heard minimum wage just became the same price as a pack of cigs. I believe that enough is enough. If we chose to live in poverty and damage our own health is that proof enough we are capable of making our own choices and have strong enough will power to get any job done? lol
I have to say I agree with this. More than half the of price of a pack of cigaretes in NY is taxes -- that is so totally wrong. Also, as much as I hate smoking, I support an individual's right to smoke, provided I don't have to breathe it.
* * *
Hey Pond, you probably don't want to hear this from a total stranger but the best thing you could do to improve your life right now is to quit smoking. Think of the power in that decision: You will simultaneously save yourself a lot of money and improve your health -- there's no down side to it! Call your local health department about any smoking cessation programs they offer.
Studies have shown that a combination of using a nicotine substitute (such as nicorette gum) together with "something else" (formalized behavioral instruction, hypnosis, acupuncture, etc.) works best.
I come from a family of smokers...wife, mother, everybody smokes. Needless to say, they don't listen to me at all. So maybe I can get a total stranger to quit. :)
The hypocritical thing I saw with not allowing full time corps to smoke is Don W was allowed to keep smoking while he was full time staff. He wreaked like cigarettes terribly. Sadly, it cost him his life.
Let's not forget LCM and the Trustees smoked cigars when they were in the Bahamas at a Trustee meeting. Didn't he say something like "Rules are meant to be broken."
Maybe it's OK to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission. But prepared to get your face melted.
Folks, the problem with smoking isn't that it just puts you yourself in medical danger. Or even puts a burden on your family. It also puts a burden upon the rest of society. Through:
1) the dangers of 2nd hand smoke, which has an increasing medical evidence of the risk to other people.
2) the increasing medical costs to other people, particularly when the smoking patient is uninsured. Thus sending the costs to you and me.
3) the health effects that is on those that smoke often makes them less efficient, less productive, and invariably puts your fellow workers at the risks given above.
4) since smoking is so damn addictive, it exasperates the problem, and again, often on the backs of others, not just upon yourself.
Guess what, boys and girls, at the risk of sounding like an e-v-i-l Marxist, liberty is not something that is solely the benefit for you yourself. Liberty comes with responsibility to have the regard for other people. ... No option in that. Liberty for yourself and regard for other people are like Siamese twins; cut one off, and the other dies.
Like my mother would always say, "You live in a world with other people." ... Oh, and as regards to all those other items that people can possibly be harmed by; sugar, booze, etc., ... legal products they might be, but if the usage of said products causes harm to come to you as well as puts a burden on society as a result, then yeah, your 'liberty' as regards using such is going to be curtailed to some degree.
If you live/work in Ohio, you are not allowed to smoke in a fleet vehicle. It's really not much different than the ban on smoking in your office cubicle. The company owns it and other people are affected by the smoking. Pretty straightforward, in my opinion.
Now, to clarify about the company I previously noted, there was no smoking, anywhere on company property or in company vehicles. If you were hired in before the prohibition, smoking was permitted during off-hours. New hires, however, knew exactly what was expected of them when they signed on for the job. Don't like the rules? Don't accept the job.
Folks, the problem with smoking isn't that it just puts you yourself in medical danger. Or even puts a burden on your family. It also puts a burden upon the rest of society. Through:
1) the dangers of 2nd hand smoke, which has an increasing medical evidence of the risk to other people.
2) the increasing medical costs to other people, particularly when the smoking patient is uninsured. Thus sending the costs to you and me.
3) the health effects that is on those that smoke often makes them less efficient, less productive, and invariably puts your fellow workers at the risks given above.
4) since smoking is so damn addictive, it exasperates the problem, and again, often on the backs of others, not just upon yourself.
Guess what, boys and girls, at the risk of sounding like an e-v-i-l Marxist, liberty is not something that is solely the benefit for you yourself. Liberty comes with responsibility to have the regard for other people. ... No option in that. Liberty for yourself and regard for other people are like Siamese twins; cut one off, and the other dies.
Like my mother would always say, "You live in a world with other people." ... Oh, and as regards to all those other items that people can possibly be harmed by; sugar, booze, etc., ... legal products they might be, but if the usage of said products causes harm to come to you as well as puts a burden on society as a result, then yeah, your 'liberty' as regards using such is going to be curtailed to some degree.
Obesity will be the next on the list....?
Didn't obesity related deaths surpass smoking and others last year? Where would be the fine line in 'liberty' being curtailed by some bureacratic weight loss program so that an individual doesn't 'burden society?' The medical field is ripe with examples of treatment for obese patients: 1) extra costs/burdens of handling their care, 2) surgery challenges for the overtly-obese, 3) special beds, heavy-duty equipment, 4) complications accompanying obesity, etc.
Will the obese-police be monitoring neighborhoods....???
One more thing on smoking: Should the US President be mandated to NOT SMOKE?
Or, is the ruling class exempt from all these 'petty' rules?
Ronald makes kids FAT! Well, Ronald McDonald is being pressured to retire. The food nazi's strike again. You think your safe because you don't smoke? ha ha ha...this is just the beginging. :)
Edited by RottieGrrrl
One more thing on smoking: Should the US President be mandated to NOT SMOKE?
A-yup.
And as per obesity, being heavy weight alone doesn't put one at direct risk of endangerment of one's health. However, if someone is so fat, so obese, that their health risk causes a far more burden on not only their health insurance, but also raises the health care costs of others (and yes, this does occur in the insurance industry, as unfair as it is), then yeah, I think that they can be expected to take better care of themselves.
But that is a far cry from the No-Fat Police roaming the neighborhoods.
Please look back to the 4 reasons I gave regarding smokers, ok?
1) the dangers of 2nd hand smoke, which has an increasing medical evidence of the risk to other people.
2) the increasing medical costs to other people, particularly when the smoking patient is uninsured. Thus sending the costs to you and me.
3) the health effects that is on those that smoke often makes them less efficient, less productive, and invariably puts your fellow workers at the risks given above.
4) since smoking is so damn addictive, it exasperates the problem, and again, often on the backs of others, not just upon yourself.
But hey, if you don't want to be told not to smoke, ... then you should bear all the costs/consequences yourself. That includes not having your insurance company cover your decision and your freedom to smoke.
Didn't obesity related deaths surpass smoking and others last year? Where would be the fine line in 'liberty' being curtailed by some bureacratic weight loss program so that an individual doesn't 'burden society?'
In New York State, Governor Patterson wants to institute a soda tax under the guise of reducing obesity, but it's really just underhanded way of raising revenue to plug a budget hole.
Well, I smoke. I'm insured. Yes..........virginia I'm an addict. I don't think anyone is going to "catch" lung disease walking into my office. Illinois has made it illegal since..what? January 2009? I STILL smoke in my office, and so far, nobody has called the cigarette police on me.
To be honest, the reason I go to my support group on Friday nights, is NOT to curb my smoking, it's to curb my damn problems. One day I may get to the point where I can quit. Until then, there are plenty of other problems I have to take care of, smoking is at the bottom of my list...for now.
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Bolshevik
I was told I was not allowed to smoke because The Corps were not allowed to smoke.
Just a cross-eyed moment.
. . . Then there was the "baby explosion" once Queen Q-Tip took power.
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skyrider
Martindale's revelation envisioned thousands and thousands coming to twi, taking their classes, abundant sharing at 15%, etc.........but that did NOT happen. The added financial weight of all corps on twi's payroll was tipping twi's financial scales in a downward trend.
The mandate of NO SMOKING......was the first step to stop the financial hemmorhaging. In a static situation, twi mandated every cost control measure to slow down the red ink.
No Smoking --- did NOT apply to Don Wierwille.
It's nice to be in the ruling class.
In today's world is.........SMOKERS NEED NOT APPLY the beginning of a tread?
The beginning......of healthcare micro-management?
The beginning......of obesity management?
The beginning......of __________________?
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waysider
In Ohio, it's illegal to smoke in public places, including bars. Lots of companies have had smoke free policies for years and even decades.
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skyrider
Apples and oranges in comparison.
Smoking in designated areas as opposed to SMOKERS NEED NOT APPLY.......wowsers!!!
If you are a smoker.........no job here for you.
If you are a smoker.........company healthcare costs will rise, so don't bother wanting to work here.
If you are a smoker.........what if all companies go this route?
YET........in the link above, those hospital workers that are smokers.....that's okay. But the new standard is that Bethlehem hospital will no longer hire you if you smoke. And, they will check you for nicotine to certify.
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waysider
There are many companies here that will not hire you if you are a smoker. My wife worked for a company, about 10 years ago, that fired people for smoking on their off-hours. They cited insurance costs as their justification.
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Rejoice
Wow, what is next?
Obese people need not apply---leads to heart disease, high blood pressure,diabetes, arthritis, or anyone who has more than two drinks at any given time...
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RottieGrrrl
Well Rejoice, you took the words right out of my mouth. It is, after all, a LEGAL product. If smokers are targeted, there are so many other groups as well. Drinkers, sun tanners, etc, etc, Besides, insurance already raises the fee for smokers as is.
I hate smoking, I really do. It's a nasty habit I wish I never picked up. But if I were in the position of having to find another job, I just wouldn't bother with a place that didn't hire smokers. No loss to me. Any job that is that controlling over your personal life is not one I would want to be a part of. Back in my temping days (boy am I glad those days are over) I've had assignments at a lot of these controlling places and I know what these control-freak places are like. I couldn't wait to get the hell out of some of them, and was grateful when the "assignment" was over.
They were usually extremely anal jerks, who usually based their own worth on "not being as bad as somebody else." Or I should say as what they perceived of as being bad. And believe me, people can get very self-righteous when it comes to smokers.
Not people I would even want to associate with at all.
I thought I saw the height of hypocrisy when I just happened to be skimming job ads a few years back, before I started my present job, and saw a Harley Shop advertising for workers, (it was some corporate office I think) and had a very strong anti-smoking policy. Who are they kidding? Trying to pretend Harley customers are wholesome, Disney World characters?
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soul searcher
I'm not sure how I feel about that...
[Full disclosure: I smoked about a pack a day for almost 20 years. On April 3rd it will be 18 years since I quit.]
While I was a smoker I tried to quit unsuccessfully several times, but what really motivated me to quit was when I started working for a hospital in 1991. Smokers had to go outside to smoke and standing in cold, wet weather greeting non-smokers as they came and went made me feel like a total loser. So much so that I decided that was it -- I went to hypnosis and I quit. It was the best thing I ever did in my life health-wise.
Anyway, unless the drug test uses the hair-sample method, you can beat it by not smoking for a few days before the test and flushing out your system with lots of water. Hair sample tests are virtually impossible to beat since traces of certain substances can remain in your hair weeks or months after consumption. (Yeah, I know it's very difficult to quit smoking for even a day, but how badly do you want the job?
P.S. The hospital I worked for did have pre-employment drug screening so I had to quit using all other substances for a few weeks. Fortunately, nicotine wasn't one of the substances they tested for. :)
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Watered Garden
I quit smoking before we went in FWC but I missed it for a while in times of stress. Then I worked for 8 years at a cancer hospital. Listen to someone whose lungs are filled with tumors, blood, and fluid try to breathe and you will definitely think again.
I think a private company has the right to decide based on cost controls. Smoking is one of the biggies when it comes to health care costs. I don't think it is discrimination; you cannot control the color of your skin, but you make the decision to smoke or not.
The hospital where I worked offered free smoking cessation programs to its employees, but some of them smoked anyway. Then the hospital system decided to build a nice garden atrium for smokers and invited the cancer hospital to pay for part of it. Needless to say, they refused. Now the entire campus is allegedly smoke-free, though of course there are still people who stand around in their hospital gowns, holding onto their IV poles for balance, while sucking on a cigarette.
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pond
Harley bikes are very very costly Rottie I know a few owners and trust me they all have incomes in the six or 7 figure class. I agree the corp made its name with sense of rebel without a cause idea yet reality is they market the elite and wealthy class. who often do not smoke.
I have become poor lately and I smoke. In a sense I believe this is wrong (the ruling on no hire) Smokers in New york pay HUGE tax on cigereets they are 8 dollars a pack or more. I heard minimum wage just became the same price as a pack of cigs. I believe that enough is enough. If we chose to live in poverty and damage our own health is that proof enough we are capable of making our own choices and have strong enough will power to get any job done? lol
I couldnt apply I smoke and I would get busted for sure. Discrimination? yeah probably but who and what defines that? Im also over weight and young sexy studs do not open doors for me any more Is that discrimination?
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Bolshevik
I think you've got to view twi's smoking ban together with the other items skyrider mentioned. It was desperate and wrong.
(the hospital article should be another thread all together . . . IMO.)
Wasn't his death cited as the "real reason" for the smoking ban?
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Jim
Two issues here, after we set aside the smoking-is-expensive-and-bad-for-you issue.
The first is whether or not it is correct to change the rules midstream. I say no. It happens, it's happened to me, and I hate it. Not with smoking but other things.
The second is whether or not you drive away good people with an arbitrary policy. Many years ago, I worked for a Dallas-based company. They decided that implementing a tough no-drugs police would help sell their products. The only problem was that their star programmer, and their only truly productive programmer, couldn't pass the drug test. TWI never cut much slack for anyone who wasn't in the ruling class, assuming that there was always fresh meat to replace anyone that required too much personal accommodation.
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Broken Arrow
Where does it stop, though? Too much sugar can cause diabetes, too much fat can cause heart disease. Are they going to monitor how much someone exercises?
I used to be a smoker and we were not allowed to smoke in the building I worked in so we went outside by the back door. Non-smokers complained because they didn't like us all looking at them when they walked in so we had to move. Apparently some thought we looked like bunch of ruffians or something even though most of us were attorneys, bankers and other type of professionals. I mean, come on! It's one thing to ban smoking in the building, I can understand that; but ridding the area of smokers because you don't want to look at them? That's ridiculous. Like Waysider, I live in Ohio. When they first passed the no smoking law, they were planning on citing truck drivers who smoked in their cabs while driving across Ohio even if they were from another state. It's true! A commercial truck is considered a workplace, and the new law said that you couldn't smoke in a workplace. They backed away from it. I guess it didn't fit well with their initiative to attract businesses to our state. I'm all for quitting smoking believe me. What I'm against is this paternal, self-righteous attitude on the part of the government and others.
By the way, I smoked for about 30 years. Most of that time I was trying to quit. Then one day my heart stopped beating while I was taking a stress test at the doctor's office. I flatlined for 15 seconds and came out of it. I was rushed to the emergency room and eventually was given a pacemaker and sent home. In rare cases patients with new pacemakers may develop a condition called "pericarditis". That is when fluid builds up around the heart and causes pressure. It is very uncomfortable and you become winded with very little activity. Well, guess what? I'm rare! Back to the hospital I went this time in a heck of a lot of pain. They gave me morphine and I said, "God bless the man that invented morphine!" I felt better, soon I felt pretty damn happy...they wouldn't give me any more morphine. I guess I was having way too good of a time so they opted for extra-stength Tylenol...no more fun. Anyway, they put me in a room and that is when I really realized the limits of my own mortality and that some day I would leave this material world. So, as I lie there on the bed staring at the ceiling tile I said a prayer and the prayer was, "This sucks, and I don't ever want to go through this again! So, I quit smoking and that was in February 2005.
It's still amazing to me how the human brain works. , I smoked for about 30 years. But when faced with the reality of out of control suffering I had no problem quitting. Any time a thought would come in to smoke I would almost laugh and say, "Yeah, right! Like I want to go through all that again!" Someone who is into Neuro Linguistic Programming would call that "dropping an anchor". That is where the memory of an event or experience trumps a negative habit and/or begins a new, more positive habit. Why couldn't I quit 20 years ago? I guess because nothing happened that was painful enough to counteract the pleasure of my bad habit of smoking. Still, I think it is possible to quit prior to having to go through an experience like mine. If somehow one could connect with the dangers of smoking emotionally as well as mentally, I think the chances of successfully quitting would be greater. I'm not an expert, this is just my own experience.
So, if you're someone who is trying to quit smoking let me just say to never give up on quitting. It can be done and you are not alone.
Shalom
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Watered Garden
I didn't know about the proposed ban on truckers smoking in their cabs. I think that's invasion of privacy, but then I think mandatory seat belt laws are invasion of privacy. I have no problem with people smoking if they want to; at the cancer hospital we used to offer to save them a bed.
I am probably something of a reformed sinner when it comes to smoking. Working at the cancer hospital was one of the scariest experiences of my life. I had been an ex-smoker for years by then but still, the suffering caused by an addiction to anything is pretty bad.
I worked at a hospital in the South where smokers were forced outside, and nonsmokers objected because the smokers were getting a break to go smoke while they weren't allowed breaks for any reason other than a 30 minute lunch (illegal, but true).
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soul searcher
I have to say I agree with this. More than half the of price of a pack of cigaretes in NY is taxes -- that is so totally wrong. Also, as much as I hate smoking, I support an individual's right to smoke, provided I don't have to breathe it.
* * *
Hey Pond, you probably don't want to hear this from a total stranger but the best thing you could do to improve your life right now is to quit smoking. Think of the power in that decision: You will simultaneously save yourself a lot of money and improve your health -- there's no down side to it! Call your local health department about any smoking cessation programs they offer.
Studies have shown that a combination of using a nicotine substitute (such as nicorette gum) together with "something else" (formalized behavioral instruction, hypnosis, acupuncture, etc.) works best.
I come from a family of smokers...wife, mother, everybody smokes. Needless to say, they don't listen to me at all. So maybe I can get a total stranger to quit. :)
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Nottawayfer
The hypocritical thing I saw with not allowing full time corps to smoke is Don W was allowed to keep smoking while he was full time staff. He wreaked like cigarettes terribly. Sadly, it cost him his life.
Let's not forget LCM and the Trustees smoked cigars when they were in the Bahamas at a Trustee meeting. Didn't he say something like "Rules are meant to be broken."
Maybe it's OK to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission. But prepared to get your face melted.
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GarthP2000
And the problem with this is ... ?
Folks, the problem with smoking isn't that it just puts you yourself in medical danger. Or even puts a burden on your family. It also puts a burden upon the rest of society. Through:
1) the dangers of 2nd hand smoke, which has an increasing medical evidence of the risk to other people.
2) the increasing medical costs to other people, particularly when the smoking patient is uninsured. Thus sending the costs to you and me.
3) the health effects that is on those that smoke often makes them less efficient, less productive, and invariably puts your fellow workers at the risks given above.
4) since smoking is so damn addictive, it exasperates the problem, and again, often on the backs of others, not just upon yourself.
Guess what, boys and girls, at the risk of sounding like an e-v-i-l Marxist, liberty is not something that is solely the benefit for you yourself. Liberty comes with responsibility to have the regard for other people. ... No option in that. Liberty for yourself and regard for other people are like Siamese twins; cut one off, and the other dies.
Like my mother would always say, "You live in a world with other people." ... Oh, and as regards to all those other items that people can possibly be harmed by; sugar, booze, etc., ... legal products they might be, but if the usage of said products causes harm to come to you as well as puts a burden on society as a result, then yeah, your 'liberty' as regards using such is going to be curtailed to some degree.
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waysider
If you live/work in Ohio, you are not allowed to smoke in a fleet vehicle. It's really not much different than the ban on smoking in your office cubicle. The company owns it and other people are affected by the smoking. Pretty straightforward, in my opinion.
Now, to clarify about the company I previously noted, there was no smoking, anywhere on company property or in company vehicles. If you were hired in before the prohibition, smoking was permitted during off-hours. New hires, however, knew exactly what was expected of them when they signed on for the job. Don't like the rules? Don't accept the job.
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skyrider
Obesity will be the next on the list....?
Didn't obesity related deaths surpass smoking and others last year? Where would be the fine line in 'liberty' being curtailed by some bureacratic weight loss program so that an individual doesn't 'burden society?' The medical field is ripe with examples of treatment for obese patients: 1) extra costs/burdens of handling their care, 2) surgery challenges for the overtly-obese, 3) special beds, heavy-duty equipment, 4) complications accompanying obesity, etc.
Will the obese-police be monitoring neighborhoods....???
One more thing on smoking: Should the US President be mandated to NOT SMOKE?
Or, is the ruling class exempt from all these 'petty' rules?
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RottieGrrrl
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GarthP2000
A-yup.
And as per obesity, being heavy weight alone doesn't put one at direct risk of endangerment of one's health. However, if someone is so fat, so obese, that their health risk causes a far more burden on not only their health insurance, but also raises the health care costs of others (and yes, this does occur in the insurance industry, as unfair as it is), then yeah, I think that they can be expected to take better care of themselves.
But that is a far cry from the No-Fat Police roaming the neighborhoods.
Please look back to the 4 reasons I gave regarding smokers, ok?
1) the dangers of 2nd hand smoke, which has an increasing medical evidence of the risk to other people.
2) the increasing medical costs to other people, particularly when the smoking patient is uninsured. Thus sending the costs to you and me.
3) the health effects that is on those that smoke often makes them less efficient, less productive, and invariably puts your fellow workers at the risks given above.
4) since smoking is so damn addictive, it exasperates the problem, and again, often on the backs of others, not just upon yourself.
But hey, if you don't want to be told not to smoke, ... then you should bear all the costs/consequences yourself. That includes not having your insurance company cover your decision and your freedom to smoke.
Okay? <_<
Is that statist enough for you all here?
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soul searcher
In New York State, Governor Patterson wants to institute a soda tax under the guise of reducing obesity, but it's really just underhanded way of raising revenue to plug a budget hole.
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GarthP2000
Well, there's one surefire way of overcoming _that_ socialist plot now, isn't there?
Start drinking bottled water.
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RottieGrrrl
Well, I smoke. I'm insured. Yes..........virginia I'm an addict. I don't think anyone is going to "catch" lung disease walking into my office. Illinois has made it illegal since..what? January 2009? I STILL smoke in my office, and so far, nobody has called the cigarette police on me.
To be honest, the reason I go to my support group on Friday nights, is NOT to curb my smoking, it's to curb my damn problems. One day I may get to the point where I can quit. Until then, there are plenty of other problems I have to take care of, smoking is at the bottom of my list...for now.
edited because I can't spell Illinois.
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