It is all done in the name of health. Companies get lower insurance rates for employees if they 1. Ban smoking on the premises; 2. Ban employee smoking at any time, including off-hours. The test for cotinine is the killer. It's really a test for nicotine residuals -- and e-smokers would be nailed. It's blatantly discriminatory, I agree, and smokers are the last large group of people who can be discriminated against seemingly without consequence.
This ban that uses cotinine testing is being done, as I noted, not only by private companies -- whose owners have broad powers over employees -- but by a county government!
I watched a documentary on one business owner who stated that the reasoning on the smoking employee ban was that smokers "required more breaks and more time off than non-smokers" due to the need for smoke breaks, medical breaks, sick days, etc. Not only was this not fair to the non-smoking employees, which were generally more productive according to an internal study performed by the business, but financially draining on the business itself. I can see why a business would prefer to hire a non-smoker over a smoker... but, say I smoke only when I'm at home as I prefer, for discussion's sake, a pipe in the evening. This will show up in a test for nicotine, but a pipe in the evening after work will not effect anyone's health drastically enough to cause any concern, nor will it detract from my effectiveness as an employee.
It irks me to think that such a negative model is being attached to smokers. There's been no report of businesses being reluctant to hire someone who frequently eats fast food, or someone who normally lives a very unhealthy lifestyle. I personally see all of these as being equivalent.
There was a study done by 3rd party group (can't remember the name) on the true harmfulness of smoking cigarettes by an adult male for a duration of years and found that the damage done by cigarettes can be measured in a term they dubbed "pack-years." I.e. If an adult male was to consume 1 pack per day for 1 year, this would equate to his use of 1 pack-year. The study found that the average adult male could live through an average of 30 pack-years before experiencing any severe detrimental health effects. This was enlightening for light smokers, considering that if you were to smoke 5 or less cigarettes a day, it is likely that you would never experience severe detrimental health effects as a result of your smoking.
I'm sure many of you have seen the movie "Supersize Me" with Morgan Spurlock, "An irreverent look at obesity in America and one of its sources - fast food corporations." In this documentary it was more than adequately outlined how badly eating fast food on a regular basis can affect your health. Granted, Spurlock did consume an amount of McDonald's on a regular basis that would not be considered normal, but it was an amount of food that is normally consumed by (I can't remember the percentage from the movie)... a large amount of people. Also, Spurlock only continued this diet for a period of 30 days. In only 30 days of eating this way, Spurlock was on his way to some serious health risks.
So, why aren't we cracking down on fast food the same as we are for big tobacco? This
Actual Causes of Preventable Death in the United States website outlines the 9 most common forms of preventable death as of the year 2000. Notice how close poor diet and physical inactivity is in average deaths to tobacco consumption. It is predicted that it is very likely that poor diet and physical inactivity will seen be the number 1 most common form of preventable death in America.
