(Don’t) Smoke ’em if Ya Got ’em
There is an interesting little debate happening in the small city where I live, Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Recently a local health care organization, Susquehanna Health (SH), announced that not only will smoking not be permitted anywhere on campus, but that starting January 1st, in an effort to expand its smoke-free environment, they will not be hiring anyone who smokes cigarettes at all.
As you can imagine this is causing quite a stir in the community. It also raises some interesting questions, such as, ‘will they stop hiring obese people too?’ ‘what about people who drink too much coffee?’ As far as I can tell, the underlying reasoning behind the smoking policy is that, as a health care organization, SH is trying to promote healthy lifestyles. The question of discrimination immediately comes to mind for me. But according to a Williamsport attorney interviewed in this article, it’s not illegal to discriminate against smokers–in Pennsylvania, tobacco users are not protected under the law.
I’m not quite sure how I feel about this issue. I guess as a health care provider it makes sense that they would want to endorse healthy lifestyles. Think about how ridiculous the opposite situation would sound:
Headline: “Hospital refuses to hire health care professionals unless they start smoking!”
Like it or not, smoking is an extremely unhealthy, not to mention addictive habit. I used to smoke myself, so I know how hard it is to quit. I also know that unlike eating, smoking is not something that you have to do, It’s voluntary. No one forced me to smoke cigarettes, it was a conscious choice I made (although not a very wise or well thought out one).
I guess for me the issue keeps coming back to discrimination. Although the Commonwealth of PA says it’s not illegal, not hiring someone because they smoke is still a type of discrimination. So is it ok to discriminate against someone because of a bad, unhealthy habbit? I honestly don’t know, but for now, if ya got ’em, ya better not smoke ’em.
what did the headline say?!?