Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 1, 1993 TAG: 9304010407
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-16 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
SMOKING
MANY COMPANIES prohibit or limit smoking in the workplace. These policies would not have been changed by the so-called smokers-rights bill vetoed Tuesday by Gov. Douglas Wilder.The bill, however, would have prevented employers from firing or refusing to hire individuals solely because they smoke outside the workplace.
At first blush, this might seem only fair. What business is it of businesses if employees smoke at home - or sing in the shower or floss their teeth with chicken wire?
But smoking can cause serious health problems that add significantly to businesses' cost of providing health insurance for their workers. If companies require employees to pay a portion of those costs, nonsmoking workers effectively pay for the health woes of smoking colleagues.
OK, it's true: Employers and other employees may also pay more for health insurance due to the poor health of co-workers who are alcoholics, or chocolaholics, for those who refuse to exercise or those who may be genetically inclined to contract certain diseases.
But therein lies the real problem with the smokers-rights bill.
It would have given smokers more protection against employment discrimination than is afforded others whose personal habits or genetic codes may lead to health problems. Indeed, as Wilder properly concluded, it would have elevated smokers into a special class of citizens.
This measure, sponsored by Sen. Virgil Goode, D-Rocky Mount, was pushed by a tobacco industry that is seeing its clout in the General Assembly erode. Though in many respects a symbolic measure, the bill potentially could have bolstered the industry's ability to defeat cigarette-tax increases and anti-smoking measures in future years by establishing a presumption that smokers have legal "rights" on a par with constitutionally guaranteed civil rights.
The governor's reasoning was on target:
To equate smokers' rights "to those protected by the First Amendment's guarantees or to rights protecting against discrimination on the basis of race, age or sex is not persuasive," he said. "Free speech is not an acquired habit, smoking is, and does in some instances infringe upon the rights of others."
We would add that race, age or sex are not matters of choice. Smoking is.
As long as smoking is legal, smokers can continue to make that choice. But they shouldn't expect special legal status for making it.