Tobacco.org

• Costs Make Employers See Smokers as a Drag 

Pointing to rising health costs and the oversized proportion of insurance claims attributed to smokers, some employers in California and around the country are refusing to hire applicants who smoke and, sometimes, firing employees who refuse to quit.

"Employers are realizing the majority of health costs are spent on a small minority of workers," says Bill Whitmer, chief executive of the Health Enhancement Research Organization, an employer and healthcare coalition in Birmingham, Ala.

Federal and state laws bar employers from turning down applicants or firing workers based on race, religion or gender. Some states have enacted laws offering similar protections for smokers. But experts say workers in nearly half the states, including California, have few legal options if employers decide to prohibit them from smoking outside the workplace.

Jump to full article »

What you do in your own home after work or on the weekend is none of your bosses' business. The last time I checked, tobacco is a legal product.
Lewis Maltby, president of the National Workrights Institute in Princeton, N.J., a spinoff of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Employers are realizing the majority of health costs are spent on a small minority of workers.
Bill Whitmer, chief executive of the Health Enhancement Research Organization, an employer and healthcare coalition in Birmingham, Ala.