Smoking is one of Australia's leading causes of death and illnesses. Smoking claimed 14,900 deaths in 2004-05 alone. Employers should ban employees from smoking during the working day both inside and outside the environment. Smoking is unhygienic, can effect job performance and cause illnesses. If all of these factors are caused by cigarettes why is it still allowed in the workplace environment?
In any working environment the main goal of a business is to make the customers happy, comfortable and wanting to come back for further business. Smoking can not only make the employees smell of cigarettes but the workplace environment smell of smoke. This can make non-smokers experience headaches, nausea and discomfort. This will make customers uncomfortable
1. Smoking is One of the biggest causes of cancer in the world. For many years of researching links between smoking and cancer are now very clear.
While cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, people still do it. The estimated amount of deaths every year is 438,000 because of the harmful effects of cigarette smoke. Tobacco smoke contains seven thousand chemical compounds. Smoking for as few as five years can have a permanent effect on many vital organs in the human body. Cigarette smoking is the cause of at least twenty-five diseases including, lung and other cancers, heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD), acute respiratory illnesses, and adverse reproductive effects. Bad breath, coughing, wheezing, and respiratory infections are symptoms that come along with smoking. A person who smokes lives thirteen to fifteen
Smoking should be banned in Australia. Smoking is a disgusting habit that many Australians use every single day. The impact of banning smoking altogether in Australia would be a massive favour for everyone. Australian adults who smoke everyday and Australian Secondary Students from the age 12 to 17 smoke over 22 billion cigarettes per year and effecting other people to start smoking because they think it’s a cool way to get attention. But I think that banning it in almost all public places is a great idea but I raise this question to you, “Why not just Ban Smoking?” This question was raised in a ‘The Age’ article in 2013. The main point of the article is, smoking is banned in pretty much all public places and there are often neighbours writing to the council complaining about a smoking neighbour, so why not just ban it altogether?
The Company’s pledge to provide a safe and healthy work environment bans smoking on Company properties, including but not limited to break areas, bathrooms, and work areas. Employees who smoke will be able to do so only on break and lunch times. They will have to go outside of the Company’s facility in the designated smoking areas on the property.
Smoking is the single highest cause of preventable death in America and puts users at significantly greater risk for disease compared to the rest of the population. Tobacco use costs the U.S. more than 289 billion dollars annually in medical expenses and lost productivity (Surgeon General, 2014). The problems associated with smoking are due in part to its addictiveness. Nicotine is the addictive substance found in tobacco and its chemical dependence is as strong as heroin, cocaine, or alcohol (CDC, 2014). Getting all smokers to quit entirely is not realistic due to nicotine’s addictive characteristics.
Smokers face many challenges in the modern world, and one of the biggest happens in the workplace. Many large – and small – employers have taken a strict zero-tolerance approach to smoking in the workplace, and that can literally leave smokers with no place to
Smoking is one of the leading preventable causes of death in the United States. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Cigarette smoking causes more than 480,000 deaths each year in the United States, which are nearly one in five deaths. The problem about smoking is that not only the smokers are affected by the smoke, but non-smokers and children who are exposed to the secondhand smoke; secondhand smoke, also known as environmental tobacco smoke, is smoke from burning tobacco products that can be inhaled from the exhaled smoke by the smoker, mainstream smoke, or sidestream smoke, which is the smoke that comes from a lighted cigar, cigarette, or pipe and is more toxic and dangerous than the smoke that comes from the
One of America’s leading cause of death is smoking. Smoking has been around for years and doesn’t look like it’s going away anytime soon. The effects of smoking harms about every organ in the body, for example: the heart, blood vessels, lungs, eyes, mouth, reproductive organs, bones, bladder, and digestive organs. Smokers use that “it’s my body, I do what I want,” The problem with that is smoking doesn’t just affect the person doing it. It harms other people in the ways; it’s called 2nd hand smoking. People who receive second hand smoking are possible to get a disease as a person who smokes regularly. It might not be as serve but will still be not good. Most people are trying to quit but aren’t trying hard enough without motivation. Smoking is one of the most common causes of death however quitting now will decrease your chances of disease and death.
The Institute of Medicine found that children, who are born between 2000 and 2019, would suffer 249,000 fewer premature deaths and 45,000 fewer deaths from lung cancer, when the legal age to purchase tobacco is increased from 18 to 21 years old (atg.wa.gov 2016). Tobacco is the leading cause of preventable death in the U.S, which causes many chronic health complications such as heart disease, cancer, and lung disease (atg.wa.gov 2016). Raising the legal age to purchase tobacco products to 21 in Washington state will decrease the use later in adult life specifically, ages 15 to 17 who are targeted the most through tobacco companies due to their vulnerability and gives loyalty to a specific tobacco company from the addiction of nicotine. Needham, Massachusetts campaigned to raise the legal age to purchase tobacco products from 18 to 21 in 2005 and won. Results are already compelling, showing that between 2006 and 2012 Needham’s high school smoking rate dropped more than half among girls and boys (atg.wa.gov 2016). Given that nicotine can be such an addictive drug and be seen to be used as a coping mechanism, specifically ages 15 to 17 through their developing stages of life, needs to encounter harder access to get their hands on tobacco products. According to the Center of Disease Control, one in 13 Americans age 17 or younger alive today are estimated to die prematurely due to the effects of smoking (atg.wa.gov 2016). Raising the legal age to
Recorded in Australia during 2011-12, 8 million Australian adults had smoked a cigarette in their life, out of that 8 million; 3.1 million were already current smokers. Currently there are laws against smoking in the workplace, but there are no laws about having restricted areas for smoking outside of the workplace. In 2011-12, there was a recorded estimate of 22.7 million residents. 19.6 million of those people do not smoke, so why are we not making Australia a safer and smoke free environment for those people.
The Australian average statistic for people that smoke is 23.3%. The employed adult average statistic is 84%. Knowing this we can roughly estimate that in the average workplace 1 out of 4-5 people will smoke. The Australian average for people that suffer from asthma is 18%. This makes 1 out of 5 people in the workplace will suffer from some form of asthma. Unfortunately, having smokers allowed to smoke in and around the premise of a workplace limits the interactions the asthma sufferers can have with other workmates as well as limiting the areas the sufferers may go due to the thick, tar soaked air.
Smoking is one of the leading causes of preventable deaths in the world. Although this lifestyle practice usually warrants a person’s conscious choice to inhale toxic fumes, more than the sole individual are affected by this habit. Passive or involuntary smoking results when bystanders are collaterally forced to also breathe in a product containing at least 70 carcinogens and 7000 chemicals, as a consequence of another person’s smoking (American Cancer Society, 2015). Evidence suggests secondhand smoking (SHS) can lead to “lung, larynx, pharynx, nasal sinuses, brain, bladder, rectum, stomach, and breast cancers” in adults, even though they never smoked firsthand. Although the severity of health abnormalities and illnesses vary due to exposure, the gravity of the repercussions of SHS cannot remain disregarded. The American Cancer Society proposes that due to a child’s pivotal physical, mental, and emotional development, they are “most affected by SHS and least able to avoid it” (2015). In addition to the impediment of a child’s development, environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) is potentially linked to the development of “lymphoma, leukemia, liver cancer, brain tumors, asthma, infections, and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)” (American Cancer Society, 2015). ETS is literally a grave dilemma plaguing nations.
The health issues associated with smoking include lung cancer and other terminal illnesses, and shortness of breath. Employers have a duty of care to their employees and should not promote smoking in the workplace. It is in the best interest of the company that staff members remain healthy so that there is a decrease in sick days and absenteeism and and increase in a productive workforce. Smoking is unacceptable inside premises as passive smoking has been clinically proven to be harmful. It has become law that smoking inside a workplace or restaurants is not allowed.
A place where people work must have specific rules regarding its hours and regulation. However, under no circumstances should employers decide for their employees whether they may smoke during their free time. People are capable of making decisions for themselves. In addition, enabling employers to decide for their employees about their lifestyle choices, might lead to employees having little control over their personal life. Finally, quitting smoking takes time. People adjust differently and a universal, fixed time frame for quitting smoking can lead to undesirable results for both the employer and employee.
One of the largest fiscal challenges facing an organization today is controlling health care costs. Health care costs cannot be controlled by managing health claims. Health care costs can only be controlled by reducing individual health claims. According to CIGNA, one of the world 's largest insurance carriers, the main driver of health care cost increases is health claims and the main driver of health claims is participants modifiable behaviors. CIGNA also maintains that smoking is the largest driver of health claims and smoking behavior is 100% modifiable. Unfortunately, the most effective cost containment strategy has been to pass on more costs to participants through higher premiums and higher fees for services. While this strategy has been somewhat effective in previous years, this strategy has lead to fewer participants being able to afford health care coverage for themselves and their families. Continuing this strategy is unsustainable.