Tobacco Use Policies for Public Safety Personnel

[trauma74 111]

A while back when I was considering moving to the State of Florida, I checked out numerous websites of the county Fire/Rescue departments thru out the State.

I found that many of the Counties ban the use of nicotine by their employees even while off duty. During the hiring process you have to sign a sworn statement that you have been nicotine free for at least one year prior to your appointment and that you must stay nicotine free during your entire employment even when you are off duty.

They provide random testing for nicotine and if they find it in your system you get fired from your job.

I can understand not being able to smoke and/or dip on duty or in uniform, but being told that you cannot do this off duty seems pretty excessive to me.

[Guest]

The thing that bothers me the most is that someone else is telling me what I can and can't do. We are all adults, and we should be able to make our own life choices.

Like abortion for example. I don't like abortions, but who am I to tell someone that she can't get an abortion. It's not my body.

Another example are seat belts. I have seen many people saved from injuries and death, because they wore their seatbelt. But I think that if the person is an adult, he or she should be able to choose whether or not to wear a seatbelt, not the government.

( I wear my seatbelt by the way)

[x242Steve 1]

I have many friends and co-workers who are tobacco users, but I also know or have known people who are dying or died from tobacco-related cancer.

What it comes down to is Health Insurance (and Life Insurance) costs. Why should your brothers and sisters in your Local have to pay for you to harm yourself? Even beyond that-- as a firefighter, why would you want to decrease your lungs' efficiency?

The seatbelt argument falls under the same category: You have the right to harm yourself in any way you see fit as long as it doesn't effect other people in any way. If you're stupid enough not to wear a seatbelt, go sit on your couch and slam your head into a piece of auto glass a few times, that way my State Farm bill won't go up.

In the end, you DO have freedom of choice: If you want to be a smoker, don't work for a place that doesn't allow it. If you don't want to wear a seatbelt, don't drive on public roads.

[Scottyk107 9]

What it comes down to is Health Insurance (and Life Insurance) costs.

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You hit it right on the head...

[Guest]

In the end, you DO have freedom of choice:  If you want to be a smoker, don't work for a place that doesn't allow it.  If you don't want to wear a seatbelt, don't drive on public roads.

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I agree with you, but I guess the point I'm trying to make is this.

How far are you going to let people tell you what to do? Are people so stupid that they need to be told how to live their lives?

I know this is far fetched but here goes. What if they deceided that to save money on insurance and LODD benefits that all Fire Fighters have to be single and have no children? And here you still have your freedom of choice, raise a family or be a fire fighter. You still got your choice, but who are they to tell you what you can do in your private life? That is the point, I'm trying to make.

This is a country based on freedom of choice. But it feels that our choices are being taken away for our own 'good'.

[Guest]

Right or wrong, I wouldn't like it, but you have to look at it from the financial angle.

If you go buy life insurance (I just did) they give you a cheek swab to determine if you use tobacco or not. If you do, the rate goes up, A LOT. Something like 40%.

In the F.D. case, perhaps the county got a 40% break on the insurance costs if they instituted a no smoking rule. Whether or not it's enforced, who knows. I would never want anyone telling me what I could or couldn't do in a my spare time, but this is all about dollars and cents.

[IzzyEng4 427]

Well here is my take and I do like the comments expressed here.

Its the law to wear seat belts, so you have to wear them. OK so that's a given, but its not illegal to smoke or use tobacco products so how is banning them not to use them at all legal? Do they ban the use of alcohol off duty? No.

We cannot drink alcohol on the job so why don't they just say you can smoke on the job either. I know its a health issue but if you area a grown adult who make their own decision that you want to smoke then fine. You have to live with it, trust me I'm a former 3 pack a day smoker who quit cigarettes seven years ago, though I may have an occasional cigar one in a while (I don't inhale them but still its a risk).

Well thank you insurance companies of this one, because I feel that they are dictating the way you chose to live. If memory serves me correctly, I am not 100% sure about this, but I do remember some sort of law suit where a firefighter who had cancer, was denied claims by his insurance because he was a smoker, this was before any on-smoking no tobacco policies were instated. Anyone remember this?

I just feel that an employer trying to run your life on your own time, when not working is wrong. Its a personal decision and what ever one you make, then you will have to knowningly suffer the consequences yourself.

Just my 2 cents.

[wmurpht 1]

"I'm the enemy because I like to think. I like to read. I'm into freedom of speech and freedom of choice. I'm the kind of guy that could sit in a greasy spoon and wonder, gee, should I have the T-bone steak or the jumbo rack of barbecue ribs or the side order of gravy fries? I want high cholesterol. I would eat bacon and butter and buckets of cheese. Okay? I want to smoke Cuban cigars the size of Cincinnati in the nonsmoking section. I want to run through the streets naked with green Jell-O all over my body reading Playboy magazine. Why? Because I might suddenly feel the need to. Okay, pal?"

United States is turning into a nanny-state nightmare, all because of stuff like this.

[Capejake72 8]

it isn't just a county requirement here in Florida, it's a State requirement, when i went through the application process for Division of Forestry (all 5 times) i had to sign an affidavit that I had not used tobacco for at least one year, same thing for when i've applied to several departments both career and volunteer down here. And when I applied in Massachusetts for diffeent departments, it is also a state law that you must be a non tobacco user any time after 1987

[Goose 188]

Interesting. I really don't have a problem with it, the state has a right to desire its employees to meet and maintain certain standards. But hey, i'm not a tobacco user so i really dont care either way

Another fun fact: smoking in an ambulance = $75,000.00 DOH fine!

[JBE 328]

Anybody got a light???

[helicopper 1,050]

The thing that bothers me the most is that someone else is telling me what I can and can't do. We are all adults, and we should be able to make our own life choices.

Like abortion for example. I don't like abortions, but who am I to tell someone that she can't get an abortion. It's not my body.

Another example are seat belts. I have seen many people saved from injuries and death, because they wore their seatbelt. But I think that if the person is an adult, he or she should be able to choose whether or not to wear a seatbelt, not the government.

( I wear my seatbelt by the way)

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Just to point out another possible perspective... If the municipality hires you and their contract provides you with medical insurance for life (quite a benefit in this day and age) do they have the right to limit their exposure by prohibiting you from using a known carcinogen that also causes or exacerbates a range of other healthcare problems?

If you want to smoke, you can - just not in their employ.

[CAM502 6]

"I'm the enemy because I like to think. I like to read. I'm into freedom of speech and freedom of choice. I'm the kind of guy that could sit in a greasy spoon and wonder, gee, should I have the T-bone steak or the jumbo rack of barbecue ribs or the side order of gravy fries? I want high cholesterol. I would eat bacon and butter and buckets of cheese. Okay? I want to smoke Cuban cigars the size of Cincinnati in the nonsmoking section. I want to run through the streets naked with green Jell-O all over my body reading Playboy magazine. Why? Because I might suddenly feel the need to. Okay, pal?"

United States is turning into a nanny-state nightmare, all because of stuff like this.

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Demolition Man was such a great movie...lol. I don't think it is there place to tell you that you can't smoke. But if it is a job requirement and you sign up for it....

[64FFMJK 21]

This is not a new topic and it does not only effect municipal employees. There are several large companies that either ban tabaco use by employees or charge more then twice the insurance rate for smokers and smokers get differtent medical coverage then non smokers. I see this being a growing trend in insurance and several cariers had anounced that they will no longer cover smokers starting in a couple years.

[RWC130 594]

I DON'T smoke, Never have!

I DO respect people who do wish to smoke,

I have family members that smoke.

I DO however have a problem with seeing EMS personnel and ER staff

outside the doors to the ER puffing away. Usually more than one person at a time.

Cough, Cough, Cough!

Visiting Fire, Police, EMS Stations, Hospitals and seeing

Cigarette butts all over the place is not cool and the CIGARETTE STENCH IS HORRIBLE!

Just MY two cents on this topic!

[ONEEYEDMIC 68]

I wouldn't get a job there if I couldn't DIP. If you smoke and want that job then stop smoking or dipping. I think that it is BS but these people know the rules when sign up.

[Guest]

Its not so much if you smoke or not but where dose it end with all the rules being put forth with are government and state. They will make up all the rules if everybody sits back and it will only get worst. Isn't thats why we are in Iraq to make them a democratic country while our country is turning into a dictatorship country. Drinking is legal for right now and that will be next someday. The insurance companies only want whats best for them.

We had a wind storm a couple of years back and I know one of the agents and he was telling me that people where getting canceled on there policy for putting a claim in for the first time in twenty years. Several older people where with this insurance company over 20 years and 1 claim and boom canceled. How fair is that all about the bottom line with profits. I had a tree come down during that time and put a hole in the roof and the person on the other line with the insurance company told me I probably would be canceled if I made a claim. So I told her to forget it I will take care of it myself, then she tells me it will still be a mark on my record because I made the phone call so to make a long story short it still went against me as a claim even know they did nothing because it has to be recorded.

Stop them from taking all are rights away.

[x635 4,066]

With the whole job being a cancer risk, anyone who smokes is just knowingly increasing their risk.

Many FD's have instituted a tobbaco use policy, and rightfully so. Just like you have to meet physical fitness standards and can't have a beard, you can't suck into your lungs a posion stick a few times every day. Especially if you expect the departmen to cover your healthcare and and respiratory injury since it most likely will be attributed to the job, and compounded by the tobbaco addiction.

Tobbaco is evil. It's been proven. If you want to introduce this poison into your body, then that's your choice. If you want to be a healthy firefighter, then that is your choice to. And do yourself a favor, go visit a former firefighter in a cancer hospital or has emphsyema or chronic bronchitis that used to smoke and ask him if that's a good decision.

It's also disgusting. I'm glad people can't smoke in resturants or bars anymore. It's nice being able to taste your food, and not having to come home having your clothes wreek.

I'm sure some of the afformentioned reasons is why EMS probaly has the lowest percentage of the three services of smokers. We witness all stages of smokings....and it's effects.

AND, children and non smokers WHO CARE about their health and care about their families (cancer and DEATH have devastating efffects on FAMILIES!) shoudln't have to be exposed to the posion. If you want to fill the air with known carcinogens for others to breathe in, I'm glad that's no longer your choice, and you're sent to a remote outside area.

I'm embarrased every time I see an on duty Police Officer, Firefighter, or EMS Personell smoking in uniform. WE ARE ROLE MODELS, AND SMOKING IS NOT SOMETHING WE SHOULD BE PROMOTING!!