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kurtbob

Lifer
Jul 9, 2019
2,131
12,756
58
SE Georgia
In my humble opinion, this is about restricting “liberties”! The VA is govt property, which means in part no mater how small that part is it’s owned by all who pay taxes. I am a veteran of Desert Storm and served again as a most of the time deployed contractor through most of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, I have a real problem with it. I put my big boy pants on every morning! If I managed to make it through rockets, mortars and being shot at while being the Doberman at the end of the leash of this country’s legislators I should be able to smoke my damn pipe between appointments if I so desire! Sorry.......end of rant
 

kurtbob

Lifer
Jul 9, 2019
2,131
12,756
58
SE Georgia
The community college I went to (Class of '17) went smoke free three or four years ago, but stated something to the effect of "The inside of your vehicle is NOT college property. If you want to smoke inside your car, or even set up a lawn chair in the bed of your pickup truck to have a smoke, we're not going to bother you." Don't know if that's still the extent of their policy. Also don't know if that bit about vehicles is (or was?) something in Maine State Law.
Exactly!!!! Here in Georgia, I can have a firearm in my car on public school campus because my car inside and out is private property! It’s illegal to remove the firearm from the car while on said property. Why the hell cant I smoke my pipe in my car on VA property.......it baffles the mind!
 
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daveinlax

Charter Member
May 5, 2009
2,074
2,980
WISCONSIN
I guess I don't share the outrage about smoking in public especially in a health care facility.
Smoking is not popular and never will be again. If tobacco use were put to a popular vote we would loose. A lot of guys can't even enjoy a pipe in their homes and as I've read some must shower before they have family contact to avoid 3rd hand smoke. ?
 

kurtbob

Lifer
Jul 9, 2019
2,131
12,756
58
SE Georgia
I guess I don't share the outrage about smoking in public especially in a health care facility.
Smoking is not popular and never will be again. If tobacco use were put to a popular vote we would loose. A lot of guys can't even enjoy a pipe in their homes and as I've read some must shower before they have family contact to avoid 3rd hand smoke. ?
I feel what you’re sayin but my “outrage” is pointed towards the slow but sure loss of my control of my life. Shall we all be told what time to go to the bathroom? If I want to slowly kill myself with smoking, drinking or using one ply toilet paper, that’s my choice;)
 

warren

Lifer
Sep 13, 2013
12,237
18,065
Foothills of the Chugach Range, AK
If I want to slowly kill myself with smoking, drinking or using one ply toilet paper, that’s my choice
Absolutely correct! Just do so in the privacy of your own home and do not violate any laws prohibiting suicide. If you do so you should be good to go. You'll be golden, in control of your life even more so than today's fighting personnel who are severely restricted as to where and when they can smoke.

Life can seem unfair and tough when you are living in a society of laws.
 
Dec 6, 2019
4,903
22,486
Dixieland
15% of the population smokes. In 2005 20%. Not as much change as some of these guys want you to belive. With the employment rate so high I bet they'll start hiring smokers.. wether they know it or not. If you think that any hospital has actually gone 10 years without hiring a smoker... geeze really. Sometimes I think there are Russians amongst us.
 

adui

Can't Leave
Aug 26, 2019
431
1,318
Mesa Arizona
the impact on employees is becoming minimal.. as they have not hired a tobacco user in over 10 years.

as far as 'open warfare' where have you been?
Hiding under a rock. ? In truth I know the public has been this way for decades. I just never knew the military was at it till I started going to the va
 
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kurtbob

Lifer
Jul 9, 2019
2,131
12,756
58
SE Georgia
Absolutely correct! Just do so in the privacy of your own home and do not violate any laws prohibiting suicide. If you do so you should be good to go. You'll be golden, in control of your life even more so than today's fighting personnel who are severely restricted as to where and when they can smoke.

Life can seem unfair and tough when you are living in a society of laws.
I agree 100% but, doesn’t mean I have to like it;)
 

brian64

Lifer
Jan 31, 2011
10,017
16,044
Don't assume you'll be left alone in your home. The pernicious nature of control never ends...it is psychotically relentless.

Eventually it'll probably require nicotine testing for home insurance. And some kind of penalties upon selling a home that tobacco has been smoked in.

And certainly it'll eventually be illegal to smoke tobacco in your home if there are children living there.

The social credit score for tobacco users will reflect the lowest dregs of society.

Of course all of this will matter not eventually, because you'll be penalized even more for an evil far worse than tobacco: carbon dioxide. The fees imposed for that privilege will make it unaffordable for most people to live anywhere at some point if the lunatics continue to get their way.

The human race is insane.

I just feel sorry for the trees...they love their carbon dioxide like we love our tobacco. Both targeted by the control freaks.

I said it before I'll say it again...control is the worst and most destructive form of addiction...and those freaks will never get enough of it. Don't look for reason, logic and common sense in any of it...it's not about the tobacco or any other "substance"...it's about the control.

Some of them want to abuse you...some of them want to be abused.
 

tuold

Lifer
Oct 15, 2013
2,133
168
Beaverton,Oregon
First of all, you are absolutely right about smoking rooms. Those may have been required when smoking was more common, but now smokers do not make up the majority of anyone's customer base.. not even bars. Warren has a great point about hospitals not condoning smoking. His comments are always very well written and he makes an undeniable point. Where is the line on that though? If you are 50 yards from the nearest person, for example you are in the far corner of the parking lot politely having a smoke.. If you make rules that also ban that, that's just too much. There are no medical or occupational concerns with smoking in the far corner of a parking lot. No smoking near the door.. no smoking within so many feet of walk ways.. no smoking inside ( obviously ). I doubt anyone has problems with these kind of rules.

As far as the subsidies go for the va facilities.. I have not been able to find how they are compensated for these kinds of polices. They may well be.. I sure hope not. We live in a time where so many risky behaviors are promoted by the federal government, with tolerance for any kind of freakish things being rubbed in our faces. Yet you are not allowed to smoke in the far corner of the parking lot. Maybe if you wore a dress and a turban then smoked on public property, you would be called the most inspiring symbol of diversity.

My point is.. we should all be against unnecessary rules/laws. We should find ways to live with our fellow man as opposed to finding justification for rules that impede his liberty.. simply because we don't have a need to smoke.

I agree that the standards are ridiculous. If I followed the rules at the hospital I worked at I'd be smoking in the middle of the street.

Surprisingly, I don't think it's the facilities themselves that are making the rules. They are implementing someone else's. I found a requirement for hospital no smoking policies by the Joint Commission On Hospital Accreditation (an endorsement every hospital wants) that states this:

In 1991 the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) announced tobacco control standards for accredited American hospitals which mandated that they go smoke-free by 31 December 1993. ... This study addresses the first standard, which requires hospital buildings to be smoke-free.

The standards have been tightened since 1993. Now the entire hospital campus is covered. This cat is not going back in the bag.
 

Peter Peachfuzz

Starting to Get Obsessed
Nov 23, 2019
295
583
Central Ohio
15% of the population smokes. In 2005 20%. Not as much change as some of these guys want you to belive. With the employment rate so high I bet they'll start hiring smokers.. wether they know it or not. If you think that any hospital has actually gone 10 years without hiring a smoker... geeze really. Sometimes I think there are Russians amongst us.

If the smoker lied on the application and managed to pass all the random testing. Did not arrive smelling of smoke or were not caught on camera lighting up in their car while still on campus. When this was new employees had 2 years to get clean. You knew they were serious when RNs were let go.
 

warren

Lifer
Sep 13, 2013
12,237
18,065
Foothills of the Chugach Range, AK
As a smoker I wouldn't hire a smoker unless they were exceptionally highly experienced and dependable, per their references and background investigation. I prefer risk averse employees as they are usually better drivers, adhere to rules better and are certainly less likely to take sick time. I never needed an insurance company to point out the obvious either.

I simply cannot think of any reason to hire a smoker these days. I wouldn't need the aggravation
With the employment rate so high I bet they'll start hiring smokers.. wether(sic) they know it or not.

And now the suggestion that smokers will readily commit fraud on their applications. Some will and so, again why not try to screen out the risk takers and liars? Doing so simply makes good fiscal sense. The above quote certainly supports my position I believe.
 

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,592
Since I seem to be able to suspend pipe smoking with no habituation problems, I suppose if I needed a job that required a non-smoking statement, I'd do it. Obviously, it would take some deciding -- how badly I needed the job, if the job was worth the intrusion, and if the employer seemed prone to stage-direct many other elements of employee's lives. It is one thing to make a defined accommodation. It is quite another to get in an employment relationship wherein the employer assumes some sort of parental or god role that misshapes ones life in other ways. I survived the workplace mostly having my boundaries respected. Even the military, where your freedoms and choices are most curtailed, offered just enough breathing space, though I spent a lot of my liberty (free time) alone to attain that.
 
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anotherbob

Lifer
Mar 30, 2019
16,481
30,873
46
In the semi-rural NorthEastern USA
This one always perplexes me. I have two medical grade oxy-cons that I use in metalsmithing, and tanks of oxygen. But, for the life of me I wonder what the big deal is. I can hold a lighter in front of the hose and never get it to burn in any way, hold my pipe or a cigar, nothing. It is used to increase the heat of other gases, like propane or acetylene, but by itself... doesn't burn or explode or anything. I'm not sure why all the warnings are felt to be so dire. Even the warning labels on them are much more prevalent than the propane and acetylene, which are much more dangerous. If the whole room was on fire, then yes, oxygen under pressure would be dangerous. But, for someone smoking or a fireplace, or even a campfire, it would do nothing at all.
oxygen tents and stuff can be really volatile. Like you said it fuels other things that are on fire and if that's a patient especially one who needs extra oxygen to not die. It's kind of the total whole situation thing. Don't look at pictures of what can happen in those situations. Though you'd be surprised how many people do try to sneak a smoke in those places. And no it doesn't go up like they say but god damn do fires grow fast in that kind of environment and even healthy people don't need a fast growing plastic fire.
 

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,592
My wife calls me "the safety officer" sometimes, but I'm no expert. But I have always heard that many fires are extremely fast. It's sort of like the way fat bears can run. They look like they can barely walk, but they are way faster than any gold medalist human runner, and can run much longer. Both the fire and the bear can get to you in seconds.
 

Peter Peachfuzz

Starting to Get Obsessed
Nov 23, 2019
295
583
Central Ohio
every hospital is scared shitless of JACHO for weeks before a scheduled visit everything is gone over with a very fine tooth comb. If they arrive unscheduled there is an underground notification network in place. Hospitals live and die by their ratings particularly management and executives.
 
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