Comments on: Cleveland Clinic will no longer hire smokers…

By: rdtohell

rdtohell — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 14:54:24 +0000

road to hell is filled with good intentions

By: GoGolfer

GoGolfer — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 10:51:01 +0000

Hello Everyone,

I am a golfer myself and I like to play whenever I get a chance.
A short while ago, a very good friend of mine told me about a great golfing equipment and accessories website that has discounted prices on all their products, same day shipping in most cases and there is no state sales tax, they are paying that.
So if any golfer here is ready to save some money on quality products at highly discounted prices, you might want to check out their site at; http://hoffmangolf.com

By: Jill Friedman

Jill Friedman — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 22:55:08 +0000

As a person who has suffered serious illness and still does from secondhand smoke, I think it is necessary to keep workplaces and many other public places smokefree. I disagree with this practice of refusing to hire smokers. It confuses the issue, which should be a simple air quality issue. The focus should be on protecting people from INVOLUNTARY exposure to smoke. Employers should not be permitted to base hiring decisions on employees’ outside activities or lifestyle choices, or even ask them about those activities. I understand that some states or localities have already passed laws prohibiting employers from doing so.
There are many different factors that contribute to a person’s health needs and healthcare costs. No one chooses to be sick. Some illnesses are caused at least partially by lifestyle choices but many are not. Healthcare should be a public service available to all citizens as it is in most countries, and should be separate from employment.
Employers who do provide healthcare can keep their costs down by providing a smokefree workplace-which is also healthy for smokers- and including in the healthcare package smoking cessation services to employees who want them.
There are a few occupations for which it is reasonable to hire only non-smokers. Those include rescue workers such as firefighters and lifeguards who need to be extremely physically fit with excellent lung capacity in order to save peoples’s lives. This is a life-and-death situation in which benefits of such a policy outweigh the privacy issues.

By: Roland Hansen

Roland Hansen — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 12:01:36 +0000

What is with all this smoke free stuff??
I just don’t understand.
I was under the impression that a person had to pay money to buy cigarettes, cigars, pipes and pipe tobacco, etc.
Now, y’all are trying to tell me that the government and now even the Cleveland Clinic say that people can smoke free.
Hrumpf — another waste of my tax and health insurance premium dollars!!!

By: BizzyBlog » Couldn’t Help But Notice (070207)

BizzyBlog » Couldn’t Help But Notice (070207) — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 10:14:52 +0000

[...] A lesson about out-of-control movements: At the beginning of the antismoking movement, of which I was an early member in the 1970s (long since not), activists said this would never happen. It doesn’t matter if they were lying from the start, or if they just got more intrusive as time went on. It’s happened. Comments come from the newly- and nicely-redesigned RAB, Columbuser, Glass City Jungle, Keeler Report, and Lincoln Logs. [...]

By: Luke

Luke — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 01:31:06 +0000

I am pretty sure that this issue has already been litigated in Ohio and a few other states, including Michigan. And the courts have found that the restriction on hiring is acceptable because smokers are not a protected class. They look at these cases in terms of contract law – you agree to give me something (smoke free work) and I agree to give you something (a job and income). I’m sure some of us have worked at those jobs where people are taking 2-3 smoke breaks an hour or are out sick more frequently.

Of course, the market will eventually bear out the strength of this type of restriction. As someone said above, if an employer starts failing to acquire the skilled employees he needs, then the smoking ban might go the way of the Dodo.

Personally, I fall on the side of employer discretion (even though I’m a cigar puffing elitist).

Smoke If You Got ‘Em

By: Roland Hansen

Roland Hansen — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 17:08:52 +0000

Wow! Demerol drip. Far out!

By: Lily White

Lily White — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 14:57:48 +0000

Personally, I’d rather stay at my desk and work — with a Demerol drip via an IV.

By: Roland Hansen

Roland Hansen — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 13:11:24 +0000

I have always thought that beer drinkers and hard alcohol drinkers ought to have a small room on the worksite to inject alcohol in their veins every 20 minutes or so.

Sarcasm intended. —– And no, I am not a smoker.

By: mud_rake

mud_rake — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 12:13:08 +0000

I have often thought that smokers ought to have a small room on the worksite to inject nicotine in their veins every 20 minutes or so.

Clean needles, of course.