2011-06-21 P-D Editorial “Smokers: ‘Move ’em out of here.'” and Letters

I missed this Post-Dispatch editorial, published on June 21, 2011, when it first appeared but two letters from readers alerted me to it today and I went back and retrieved it on-line. The editorial ends with this observation and plea:

Smokers are merely people who struggle with a dangerous and expensive addiction. Some of them, like some non-smokers, are obnoxious. But they deserve better than “Move ’em out of here! They disgust me.”

Here’s the full editorial. Maybe the point is that as long as smokers don’t pollute the air nonsmokers breathe they shouldn’t be treated as pariahs. What do you think?

Doctor-approved Camels cigarette ad

Editorial: Smokers: ‘Move ’em out of here.’

By the Editorial Board | Posted: Tuesday, June 21, 2011 12:00 am Comments (12 as of June 22, 2011, 10:42 pm)

The last cigarette smokers in America were located in a box canyon south of Donner Pass in the High Sierra by two federal tobacco agents in a helicopter who spotted the little smoke puffs just before noon.

So begins “End of the Trail,” a well-known short story by the humorist Garrison Keillor published in 1984 in The New Yorker. The story imagines that the last five smokers “had been on the run since the adoption of the 28th Amendment.”
         Some 27 years later, things aren’t quite that bad for the one in five American adults who still smokes. There has been no 28th Amendment making smoking unconstitutional. But the attitude of the chief tobacco agent in Mr. Keillor’s story is pretty common: “Move ’em out of here! They disgust me.”
         Consider some of the 370 comments posted (at last count) at STLtoday.com to a story in the Friday Post-Dispatch by reporter Blythe Bernhard. Seven SSM Health Care hospitals in the area will start a tobbaco-free hiring policy next month.
         “If you smoke at all you stink of it,” wrote one reader. “You reek. Your eyes are yellow. You have fatty deposits around your eyes. You look old and leathery before your time. Your fingers are dry and cracked, yellow and unattractive. You can’t quit because you are addicted.”
         The other side is heard from: “Our rights are being taken away little by little. First this, then it’ll be if you eat fast food, or Twinkies or if you are single [and] you have sex outside of marriage.”
         Live and let live (or not, as the actuaries suggest) is not an attitude that the Internet encourages.
         A spokesman for SSM said the company took the action to “encourage our employees to take better care of themselves and set good examples for our patients.” A side benefit, he said, is that having “healthier employees does mean lower health care costs.”
         It should be noted that SSM has the absolute right under Missouri law to set rules for its employees’ off-hour drinking and smoking habits. Most companies don’t have that right, but the law makes an exception for religious and church groups and not-for-profit health care organizations. SSM could have applied the rule retroactively to current employees, but it chose not to.
         Still, we wish SSM would rethink the policy. Low-income workers — about a third of whom smoke — will be disproportionately affected. For them, life is hard enough and jobs are scarce enough. And will it really reflect poorly on the hospital if a food-service worker is spotted smoking off-hours?
         Studies show only about one in every 20 physicians in America smokes and only one in every 12 nurses. They know the risks better than most people. Also, they’re more employable than most people.
         As to the fast-food-and-Twinkie argument, that day may come. But right now federal law suggests that obesity is a disability that deserves protection, not a life-choice that can be proscribed.
         Is there a “right” to smoke? No, courts have said smoking is “not fundamental to the concept of ordered liberty.” Further, courts have ruled, smokers do not qualify as a protected class under the 14th Amendment.
         Smokers are merely people who struggle with a dangerous and expensive addiction. Some of them, like some non-smokers, are obnoxious. But they deserve better than “Move ’em out of here! They disgust me.”

Following are the two published letters prompted by the above editorial:

Letters Page: June 24, 2011

Cost of smoking
The editorial “Nicotine stain” (June 21) brought together two separate thoughts. First, Garrison Keillor had the right idea. If smoking is as bad as it is being viewed, maybe it should be illegal, It’s certainly heading that way. Second, how does anyone who is at the poverty level afford to buy cigarettes? The price is about $5 a pack. A two-pack-a-day habit would cost more than over $3,600 per year.

Phillip Wells • Dellwood

Stop enabling
The editorial “Nicotine stain” (June 21) really pushed the limit of responsibility. I do not quarrel with the statistic that “about one-third” of low-income workers smoke. However, for the paper to suggest that this group would be “disproportionately affected” neglects the responsibility to care for one’s self.
         I am shocked by the price of cigarettes. Maybe if poor people would accept responsibility and quit smoking, life would be less hard — by maybe as much a $40 a week — and they might improve their chances of getting a job. Sounds like a “win-win” situation to me.
         When are we going to stop enabling people and relieving them of taking personal responsibility for their lives?

Don Hammond • Lake Saint Louis