You've got a week left.

Tell that to the control freaks.

I don't know what the laws are in other states but in New York, you can't smoke inside public buildings. In my nursing home, we had an additional requirement: anyone who wanted to smoke had to do it at least fifty feet away from the building.

Most of the respiratory therapists smoked. Quite a few of the nurses and aides also smoked. Many of the residents smoked. We had one room within the building for the smokers to use in inclement weather - that room reeked.

I think it's enough to make smoking indoors (in public buildings) off limits but to hire people based on whether or not they are smokers is just plain wrong. Next they'll go after us chunky people.

Next they'll go after us chunky people.

If they're an easy target.

Those of us who can't run very fast make great targets.

Watch the insurance companies find "pre-existing conditions" as another excuse to raise rates.

Texas hospital refuses to hire obese workers
Facility already facing discrimination suit

http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/nationwor ... e-workers/

Watch these rules disappear as the employment situation improves. Five or six years ago hospitals would have hired one eyed, cigar puffing, 300 pound, midget alcoholics as long as they had a nursing degree. We'll get back to that.

Very interesting! I wonder how the statistic of "Only about 20 percent of smokers actually develop the worst effects of smoking." stacks up against liver disease in alcoholics or heart disease in the obese? With that statistic, it's actually mind-blowing that insurance companies and employers can discriminate against smokers.......

Lungs from pack-a-day smokers safe for transplant, study finds

Using lung transplants from heavy smokers may sound like a cruel joke, but a new study finds that organs taken from people who puffed a pack a day for more than 20 years are likely safe.

What’s more, the analysis of lung transplant data from the U.S. between 2005 and 2011 confirms what transplant experts say they already know: For some patients on a crowded organ waiting list, lungs from smokers are better than none.

“I think people are grateful just to have a shot at getting lungs,” said Dr. Sharven Taghavi, a cardiovascular surgical resident at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia, who led the new study.

Surprisingly, however, organ recipients who do get smokers’ lungs often learn about it only afterward -- if at all, experts say.

“If someone had a transplant and after the transplant they say, ‘What can you tell me about the donor?' there are a limited number of characteristics we can tell them,” said Dr. Ramsey Hachem, a pulmonologist and transplant surgeon at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. “We don’t do that routinely before.”

About 13 percent of double-lung transplants in the U.S. came from donors with a heavy smoking history, according to Taghavi’s new study, presented Tuesday at the annual meeting of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons. He and his colleagues analyzed records of some 5,900 adult procedures in the database maintained by the United Network for Organ Sharing, or UNOS, which manages transplants in the U.S.

Typically, that meant smoking at least a pack of cigarettes a day for more than 20 years, or two packs a day for 10 years.

In the end, after all other variables were accounted for, people who got lungs from heavy smokers lived as long and as well as those who got lungs from the tobacco-free, Taghavi found. There was no significant difference in cancers, though the study didn’t specifically look at lung cancer.

“General guidelines say that donors that have smoked should be excluded, but there are certain circumstances in which they can be used,” Taghavi said. “That can be when the donors are otherwise very healthy and there’s no evidence of the really bad effects of smoking, like emphysema.”

Only about 20 percent of smokers actually develop the worst effects of smoking, noted Hachem.

“It is certainly counterintuitive to say we’re going to use lungs from a donor with a smoking history, but the majority of people who smoke do not have lung disease,” said Hachem, who was not involved in the study.

Some people may have smoked for a long time years ago, then stopped, vastly improving the health of the organs. Others could have been active smokers when they died. The data in the study didn’t include that history, Taghavi said.

Freeing up smokers’ lungs could help reduce a shortage that has left more than 1,650 people on the transplant waiting list -- the “last resort” for those with end-stage lung disease, according to the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute. There were nearly 5,200 liver transplants in the U.S. in 2012, but typically only half the people on the list receive lung transplants in a given year, the NHLBI said.

Taghavi emphasized that transplant recipients who get lungs from heavy smokers ought to be told in advance.

“This is a very important point,” he said. “None of this should be done without a thorough discussion with the recipient. They have to be aware that there are risks with accepting these lungs, but there are benefits.”

But Hachem said current practice usually doesn’t include that discussion.

Recipients decide in advance whether to take organs from high-risk donors, including those with a history of infections such as viral hepatitis or HIV. But behavior habits, such as smoking, are almost never disclosed, Hachem said.

“I don’t know what other centers do, but at our center, we don’t get into those details,” he said.

Instead, the organs are inspected carefully and only those found free of disease or disability are approved for transplant. “We’ve sort of screened the organ pretty well,” he said.

Of course, problems can occur. Widespread media reports last year centered on Jennifer Wederell, a 27-year-old British woman with cystic fibrosis who died of lung cancer last year after receiving lungs from a heavy smoker. In 2007, the family of a New Jersey man, Tony Grier, sued the University of Pennsylvania Health System after they said Grier developed lung cancer a month after a 2005 lung transplant. Court records show the case was settled in 2010.

Such cases are very sad -- but also very rare, said Hachem, who noted that all transplants carry inherent risks. And, he said, most transplant recipients are like Randy Cooke, 52, of Chatham, Ill., who received a new set of lungs in 2011.

Cooke, who was diagnosed in 2008 with a degenerative lung disease, said that by the time he was placed on the transplant waiting list, he would have accepted lungs from a heavy smoker -- gladly.

“If I’d have waited another three months, I don’t know if I’d be here talking to you,” he said.

If his lungs had come from a smoker, Cooke trusted that his doctors would have screened out any potential problems.

“You have to take a lot of times what you can get,” he said. “You don’t have a choice. Time is not on your side.”

http://news.ca.msn.com/top-stories/lung ... tudy-finds

I started smoking in 1969. the same year I started hospital work...back then you could smoke as you charted and I rarely ever took a break off the floor...Smoking was more common than not among the staff back then. Today i work 12 hr shifts and I usually get half hr. lunch and one 15 minute break--sometimes 2 fifteen minute breaks if I'm lucky...today you have to go "off the floor" and one dare not leave the floor more often because it would be immediately noticed. Generally, smokers who work hospitals "hustle" to get their work done (so they can take a break) whereas non-smokers waste time sitting around "chatting" when they're supposed to be working. Just my observation.

I assume you are still a smoker, Cannalee? If so, watch out. These restrictions may be coming to your place of employment soon.

I agree about the non-smoking staff standing around gabbing. I've seen it far too many times. When I worked at a hospital, I did hustle to do my work so that I could take a smoke break. Back then, it was in the locker room or lounge.....before smokers were relegated to the back 40. I would usually take a few quick puffs and get back to work. The only time I smoked a full one was on my lunch break.

Did you read about the transplant thing? I find that fascinating and, imo, very telling about all the hype surrounding smoking and the damage it causes, not to mention the second-hand thing..........

LOL!!!! So only non-smokers chat and smokers are more diligent, efficient workers.

Boy is that insulting!!!

yeah, i coughed a little when i read that, too.


Here is how i feel about smoking.

1. it causes cancer. there is no doubt about that, it causes cancer. Even the tobacco industry has admitted that. It raises your chances of early death. But that's your business.

2. Secondhand smoke is a real danger--especially for people who have to be around it constantly for professional reasons. There are documented cases of people getting cancer just from second hand smoke. there are enough carthenogens in second hand smoke to cause other people harm. For these reasons, restrictions on workplace smoking and public places smoking are reasonable. Thanks for not blowing cancer causing pollution at me.

3. Aside from the health reasons for keeping your cancer sticks to yourself, lots of people, myself included, think smoking is disgusting. It smells gross, it clings to stuff and stinks it up (hair, clothing, furniture, curtains). It also stains teeth, clothing, anything, wall coverings, etc. For these reasons, there are etiquette issues involved in keeping your gross habit to yourself. I personally consider it incredibly rude to:
A. Smoke in someone else's house.
B. Smoke near other people's children. (even outside)
C. Smoke in a car with non smokers.
D. Stand in crowds in doorways smoking creating a gauntlet that non-smokers will have to move through to get where they are going.
E. Hang your smoke encrusted clothing in a closet with the clean clothing of non-smokers (especially coats)
F. Think opening a window will make a difference (it doesn't).
G. Smoke up a break lounge used by non smokers.
H. Smoke in a restaurant near non smokers.
I. Smoke in a restaurant near children.
J. Smoke and then work in close proximity to people's faces, when they can smell your breath (dentists, hairdressers, doctors, nurses)
K. Put cigarette butts out on the ground and step on them, and not pick them up (especially at beaches or anywhere children play).

Smokers don't get it, because they don't smell it. They're accustomed to the smell, so it smells like nothing to them. For the rest of us, you might as well be walking around covered in barf--it's about as appealing. Seriously. Don't delude yourself. People can smell it--and people react with different amounts of disgust.

Sorry, but it's my opinion.

lol, I never meant ALL non-smokers. Neither should anyone assume that all smokers waste time taking smoke breaks.

Sorry if it came across that way.

It did come across that way. You basically said you were hustling efficiently to get your work done to take smoke breaks (while us lazy non-smokers were sluggishly chatting) .

I read that transplant article. I also read the one that said smoking takes 11 years from your life.

http://shine.yahoo.com/healthy-living/s ... 00379.html

I agree with those things too, btw. Except for dryer sheets, they don't bug me. But I hate perfume, and think it has no place in public buildings or places of work. And if i do one more parent teacher interview with someone who felt the need to talk to Jack Daniels before they talk to me, I'm going to scream.

Look, if you do all the things you say you do to keep your habit from bugging others, then I have no problem with you. But I have to say that in my experience, it makes you an abnormal smoker. When my kids were small it was normal for me to pull cigarette butts out of their mouths at the beach, and to glower at moms at the park who were chain smoking beside the swings (dropping their butts all over the gravel underneath). I've walked into buildings (one in particular was the psych ward of a hospital, when my husband was in residence) where the smokers in the door would barely MOVE OVER to let me through, let alone keep their smoke away from the door. And yes, I'm aware that some of the things I listed are illegal now. But I have found smokers as a group very resistant to showing consideration, even when the law is against them. I had a cousin who thought nothing of rolling down a window IN MY CAR to smoke, and who said, and i quote "what's the problem? I didn't use the ashtray!" when I complained. Sure, you didn't use an ashtray. You just threw your smoking trash out the window.

I don't think discrimination against smokers is the same as discrimination against people's inate selves. Smokers chose to start smoking. Quitting is difficult but not impossible. If you don't like the way smokers are treated--then quit. Stop sending Benson and Hedges your retirement funds. And hey--you'll probably live longer.

Well, sorry. Have you never spoken/posted something in haste, only to realize you didn't mean it that way?

It's not like smokers are smoking to piss anyone off, even though it does. It is an addiction. The way some sanctimonious non-smokers seem to come across, it's as if we are only doing it to harm or aggrivate others and we can just quit anytime we want.

I am, and have always been, as courteous as I can be when smoking. I absolutely HATE second-hand smoke in my face and I hate reeking ashtrays. I have 10 cigarettes a day. Outside. So shoot me. Demonize me.

As I have said umpteen times here. WHEN they outlaw all OTHER forms of "smoke" such as factory smoke, car exhausts and bus emsissions, then I might take a lighter tone. You get plenty of carcinogens from those sources.

11 years, eh? I tire of those statistics. They don't take into account how your life might be shortened by other causes. Accidents, cancers caused by other things, genetic diseases, the flu or food-borne illness, etc. etc. They are also based on nothing, since our predictable life-span is really unpredictable as is the cause of death for anyone. Just ask all the health nuts who've dropped dead of a heart attack or aneurism.

I read that transplant article. I also read the one that said smoking takes 11 years from your life.

Tell it to the 5 year old killed by a gun.
I've also read stats that state I was supposed to have died 20 years ago.

I am not a fan of 5 year olds killed by guns either, oskar.

Back in 1984 when I was pregnant the FAA just started banning smoking in the building. It was a relatively new building. I was there when Jimmy Carter cut the ribbon. I went into a conference room with NO SMOKING signs all over the wall and the room was disgusting. The very definition of a smoke-filled room. Everyone was smoking. I said, "I am sorry, but I am not staying for this meeting. Obviously no one here can read." They didn't give a shit.

Without anti-smoking legislation, all the rooms would still be like that. No diesel trucks, cars, buses or other carcinogens were present in the building. That was all cigarette smoke. I am not sure what factory smoke or car emissions has to do with this discussion. I think my nearest factory is 25 miles away. I also don't spend a whole lot of time standing on the freeway to inhale the emissions.

All of life is a crapshoot. Some people can give up smoking at 88 and die at 99 like my friend, Tom. Others get lung cancer and die fairly early. I don't care if you smoke. I just don't want to breathe your smoke.

All this stated, I do NOT think smokers should be prohibited from being employed in positions for which they are qualified just because they smoke.

I don't care if you smoke. I just want to breathe your smoke.

You might want to pick some smoke closer to home.
Besides, hubby might get jealous.

LOL!!!!! Hubby is pretty secure. It's amazing how a message gets messed up when I leave out a word.

Yeah, but who can resist making the most of it, eh?

Lol,let me too apologize in that I did not mean that all non-smokers were lazy and sat around chatting--but it does happen, just like some smokers push the envelope when it comes to taking breaks... I'm down to 5 cigs /day btw, and I do agree smoking is not a good habit and is in fact socially obnoxious...and expensive. But we digress from the thread: is it right to discriminate against smokers in hiring practices? IMO, so long as smoking is legal, there should be no discrimination...

Maybe. But it should then be legal for people to be fired if they allow their cigarette habit to become a problem (because of smoke breaks, inappropriate use of workplace space for smoking, smoking personal hygene issues, imparing the image of the business or organization by causing a nuisance at the door...etc.)