More employers demand applicants quit smoking

Until the day he was offered the job as executive sous chef of the new Hollywood Casino Columbus, Tim Dionisio smoked a pack of cigarettes a day.

And when things got hot and hectic in the kitchen, and there wasn’t time to go outside for a cigarette break, “I popped little bags of spitless chew in my mouth.”

Dionisio is now four months into a cold-turkey goodbye to tobacco products. Instead, he chain-sucks Werther’s Original candies.

“I go through a bag every two days,” he said.

Quitting wasn’t by choice, but from necessity, if he wanted to work at Hollywood Casino Columbus, which opened on Oct. 8. It does not hire smokers or allow employees to smoke on the premises or even in their homes.“Once I realized the offer was serious, I stopped smoking that day,” Dionisio said. “And I couldn’t use a patch or gum because they have nicotine in them and would have shown up on the (drug) test.”
Job-seekers must pass a drug test that includes nicotine screening, and, once hired, employees caught smoking can be fired.

“This (casino) is a brand-new project, and we wanted to set the tone from the start, that wellness is important,” said Ameet Patel, general manager of Hollywood Casino, which is owned by Penn National Gaming.

Although it is not yet a trend, a growing number of companies — especially hospitals — refuse to hire smokers, says The Columbus Dispatch. Ohio-based companies with this policy include Scotts Miracle-Gro and the Cleveland Clinic.
The goal is to improve the health of employees and reduce the company’s health-care costs.

However, this policy has raised legal and ethical issues and has some asking: Where will it stop?
“The slope is slippery,” said Lewis Maltby, president of the National Workrights Institute, a nonprofit spinoff of the American Civil Liberties Union that opposes the hiring bans.

“Smoking isn’t the only thing that affects your health; there’s drinking, eating red meat, exercise or not exercising — even your sex life affects your health,” Maltby said. “And once you say it’s all right for employers to tell someone what they can and can’t do in their private life, you don’t have a private life anymore.”

Anti-tobacco group eyes ‘smoker’s licence’

A proposed smoker’s licence could see people forced to take a test and pay a fee before they are allowed to buy cigarettes.

The licence, proposed by Sydney University professor of public health Simon Chapman, would require applicants to pass an online 'risk knowledge' test to make sure they know the dangers of what they are about to do, as well as paying an annual fee to keep the licence.

Licence holders would be given a card which they would have to show or scan whenever they wanted to purchase cigarettes or tobacco.

Action on Smoking Health director Ben Youdan says the idea is one option which could help achieve the New Zealand Government’s goal of becoming a smoke free country by 2025.

But there are a number of potential disadvantages to this idea, one being that it would take a lot of bureaucracy, money and time to get it in place.

His main concern though is that it places the burden of responsibility on the smoker, rather than the cigarette companies.

A proposed smoker’s licence could see people forced to take a test and pay a fee before they are allowed to buy cigarettes.

The licence, proposed by Sydney University professor of public health Simon Chapman, would require applicants to pass an online 'risk knowledge' test to make sure they know the dangers of what they are about to do, as well as paying an annual fee to keep the licence.

Licence holders would be given a card which they would have to show or scan whenever they wanted to purchase cigarettes or tobacco.

Action on Smoking Health director Ben Youdan says the idea is one option which could help achieve the New Zealand Government’s goal of becoming a smoke free country by 2025.

Read more: http://www.3news.co.nz/Anti-tobacco-group-eyes-smokers-licence/tabid/423/articleID/277256/Default.aspx#ixzz2CrVR0Ffu

Seven Brookline retailers fined for selling tobacco to minors

The number of retailers in town that failed the annual tobacco compliance checks shot up this year, with seven establishments getting caught selling tobacco to minors in October.

Compliance rates in the Department of Public Health program fell from 95 percent last year to 80 percent this year during a check of all 31 tobacco retailers. There were also more than twice as many businesses that failed the compliance check, despite a considerable decrease in the number of businesses permitted to sell tobacco.

The retailers who sold to a minor were issued fines at the time of the infraction in the amount of $200, and must pay an additional surcharge fee for the next two years to renew their annual tobacco sales permit.

JTI rolls out addition to Amber Leaf roll-up line-up

On November 1, Japan Tobacco International launched a new addition to its Amber Leaf rolling tobacco brand.

Amber Leaf Blonde uses a paler coloured cigarette blend, which the company believes will attract existing cigarette smokers who are trading down into roll your own (RYO) from ready-rolled cigarettes.

Blonde will be available across all channels in a 12.5g crush-proof box and 25g pouch, and exclusively to multiples in 50g, said The Grocer. It has a recommended retail price of £3.87, £7.57 and £14.99 respectively, the same as Amber Leaf.

“The launch of Amber Leaf Blonde is designed to capitalise on the growth of the RYO market, as well as Amber Leaf’s No.1 status - an achievement we’re hugely proud of,” said JTI head of communications Jeremy Blackburn.

“Unlike traditional RYO tobacco, the blend of which is typically dark in colour, Blonde uses a pale-coloured Virginia blend to provide a smooth taste. It’ll not only appeal to existing adult RYO smokers, but also the growing number of existing adult dual smokers looking for an RYO product to switch to.”