Tough smoking bans aimed at cutting costs
By Christine L. Romero
Arizona Republic
To help cut skyrocketing medical costs, companies nationwide are creating smoking bans so tough that smokers need to go all the way off company property for a puff.
A handful of companies are banning all tobacco use on every square inch of corporate property — from the parking lots to the doorways where smokers routinely huddle. Such stringent prohibitions mean a worker can't smoke in his own car if it's parked on the company's lot.
Military insurer USAA is the latest company to adopt such a ban, including cigarettes and chewing tobacco, on its company campus encompassing about 500 acres in Phoenix.
Across the nation, hardware retailer Lowe's, BF Goodrich Tires and many hospital campuses have adopted similar bans.
For many smokers, the zero-tolerance policy will mean giving up tobacco or quitting the job.
Companies say they want workers healthier and more productive.
But the clear aim of the corporate smoking-bans is to get workers to quit and help drive down healthcare costs, which are skyrocketing at staggering rates here and nationwide.
The American Cancer Society reports that anticipated medical costs drop by $47 in the first year a smoker quits and fall by $853 more in the next seven years.
Some smokers say these bans take away their personal freedom to use tobacco. Others wonder what's next. Will companies start regulating what people eat, to combat obesity, another factor driving up healthcare costs?
Not all companies are getting tougher. Southwest Airlines' corporate leaders smoke. Its operations have several "smoking rooms" on each floor and a smoking section in the employee cafeteria, company spokeswoman Whitney Eichinger said.
But those enforcing tougher rules hope some workers will use the bans to start kicking the habit.
A pack-a-day smoker spends roughly $1,530 on cigarettes annually.
San Antonio-based USAA is giving $200 to each employee and each dependent to help them stop smoking. The money can be used on smoking-replacement gum, patches and other therapies, including acupuncture and hypnosis. USAA is sponsoring smoking-cessation classes and waiving co-pays on drugs used to help people stop smoking.
Businesses pay an average of $2,189 in workers' compensation costs for smokers, compared with $176 for nonsmokers, according to the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine in July 2001.
Health problems mean more lost workdays, too. Smokers miss 6.16 days of work per year compared with the 3.86 days missed by nonsmokers, according to the medical journal Tobacco Control in September 2001.
"I think eventually you will see more of this," said Mark Brnovich, director of the Goldwater Institute's Center for Constitutional Government.
"It's up to them (businesses) to make the cost-benefit analysis. If they want to make that business choice, they should be able to make it ... free of interference from the government."
