Hospitals Shift Smoking Bans to Smoker Ban

By A. G. SULZBERGER in the New York Times, February 10, 2011

“More hospitals and medical businesses in many states are adopting strict policies that make smoking a reason to turn away job applicants, saying they want to increase worker productivity, reduce health care costs and encourage healthier living.”

“'This shift — from smoke-free to smoker-free workplaces — has prompted sharp debate, even among anti-tobacco groups, over whether the policies establish a troubling precedent of employers intruding into private lives to ban a habit that is legal.”

Read “Hospitals Shift Smoking Bans to Smoker Ban.”

The Elusive 'Smoke-Free' Home

Roni Caryn Rabin, writing in the New York Times on December 13, 2010, said a new study found that even children who live in "smoke-free" apartments are exposed to tobacco smoke. "Children living in apartments had higher levels of the chemical [cotinine, a tobacco metabolite used to assess exposure to secondhand smoke] in their systems than those who lived in detached houses, even though their own units were smoke-free zones."

Read the complete New York Times story.