Smokers need not apply

[Stray Cat]

I don't think he is.

If that's the case then I apologise and hope he sees it as a compliment that I presume he's older then he is.

 

[Trakar]

Evidence? The actual studies seem to be of people who were married to smokers, not people who were exposed to smoke 365 days a year. I know many people who smoke (although admittedly I'm not married to any of them), but I don't know a single person who smokes inside their house. Even people who like smoking don't tend to want the inside of their house coated in stale smoke. Unless you deliberately follow them outside to inhale their smoke, being married to a smoker doesn't necessarily imply you're exposed to any more smoke than anyone else.

Every smoker I know smokes in their house, unless they are in a rental with a strict no-smoking clause (and even some of those) or have a spouse who has quite smoking and enforces a similar clause. But then, perhaps I mostly know older smokers, who grew up in times when you smoked anywhere you wanted and it was not uncommon for half of restaurants to be filled with smokers smoking while they ate, and cooks to be smoking while they made your food.

 

[Cuddles]

surely you are old enough to remember the 60's and 70's

Not even close.

So yes it maybe seems like an assumption that someone married to a smoker is going to be exposed to SHS more than a non smoker when you try to compare it with today's more considerate smoker's attitude towards their homes and others around them, but it's a logical assumption based upon the reality of the situation at that time.

It may well seem a reasonable assumption. But when it comes to science, assumptions are just not enough. If, as 23_Tauri now says, they actually looked at exposure to smoke, then that's a lot better. Although that would mean that emphasising the fact they looked at married women was irrelevant.

However, the whole question seems largely irrelevant here anyway. This thread is, or at least was, about employers not employing people who smoke anywhere at any time, not necessarily anywhere near anyone else. The question of whether second hand smoke is dangerous or not doesn't seem all that relevant to a situation where there's not actually any second hand smoke involved.

 

[23_Tauri]

Not even close.

Young whipper-snapper, eh?

However, the whole question seems largely irrelevant here anyway. This thread is, or at least was, about employers not employing people who smoke anywhere at any time, not necessarily anywhere near anyone else. The question of whether second hand smoke is dangerous or not doesn't seem all that relevant to a situation where there's not actually any second hand smoke involved.

Agreed. There was a second hand smoke thread but it's not been resurrected. As regards the OP, there does seem to be a majority view here that there is little justification for not employing people who can't pass a cotinine blood test (which is what is really happening, as opposed to not employing smokers).

 

[Fnord]

For those of my friends who smoke, I've placed a sand-can under an awning in the back yard. When they come over, and the urge to fill their lungs with crap is upon them, they know where to go. All I ask it that they leave the butts in the can and exhale before they come back into the house. They still stink, but they're still my friends, too.