Anti-Nicotine Hiring Policies Exacerbate Inequalities

“It’s part of a demonization campaign,” Michelle Minton told the audience, “but it’s also part of an anti-compassion campaign.”

Minton, a senior analyst at the Reason Foundation, was speaking at the Global Forum on Nicotine (GFN) in Warsaw, Poland, in June. She was referring to companies that refuse to hire people who use nicotine.

Her talk cited how U-Haul, for example, has a policy of not hiring drivers who smoke or otherwise use nicotine—even if it’s a smoke- and vapor-free option, like a patch or a pouch, which is helping a person to quit smoking.

It’s not only companies in the United States. The World Health Organization has a similar policy, adopted in 2005, which bars job applicants who smoke, or use chewing tobacco or snuff, and aren’t willing to quit.

“Whoever decided to put that policy in, doesn’t want people coming into the WHO” with “knowledge about what life was like using tobacco, and therefore compassion for the people who continue to use nicotine and tobacco,” Minton said in the GFN session, titled “Health and economic benefits of tobacco harm reduction.”

“Anti-nicotine hiring policies potentially allow employers to selectively discriminate against these groups under the guise of health concerns.”

“A no-nicotine employment policy really opens the door to discriminatory hiring,” Minton told Filter in a subsequent interview, “given that those applicants most likely to be nicotine users are in lower income brackets, those with mental health conditions and mood disorders, older people and ethnic minorities—Indigenous Americans, in particular.”

“Anti-nicotine hiring policies potentially allow employers to selectively discriminate against these groups under the guise of health concerns,” she added. 

“We are deeply invested in the well-being of our team members,” said U-Haul’s then-chief of staff when introducing the company’s policy in 2020. “Nicotine products are addictive and pose a variety of serious health risks. This policy is a responsible step in fostering a culture of wellness.”

U-Haul’s anti-nicotine hiring policy—like those of other US companies, such as Union Pacific and Alaska Airlines—applies to job applicants in those parts of the country where such discrimination is legally permitted. 

Twenty-one states don’t protect people from employment discrimination on the basis of nicotine use, including off-duty use. Among them are red states like Alabama and Utah, blue states like Massachusetts and Washington, and big states like Florida and Texas.

Tobacco harm reduction advocates say this is really about health-related cost savings and stigma.

“If employee health was truly the goal, employers would support smoking cessation programs,” said Minton, who has previously written for Filter. “Anti-nicotine policies do the opposite—penalizing even those using nicotine replacement products to quit smoking.”

Tobacco harm reduction advocates say this is really about health-related cost savings and stigma, piling onto other disadvantages for populations using nicotine. Research has found, for example, that jobseekers who smoked were 24 percent less likely to find a job within a year than those who didn’t. And for those who do have work, smoking has been associated with lower wages.

Stigma is something that people who smoke are all too aware of, and majorities of those who smoke in the US have told pollsters that they feel discriminated against in employment and public life. That discrimination, whether formal or more subtle, is perpetuated at many companies, large and small. 

Marc Slis is a former vape shop owner in Michigan, another of the states that permits employment discrimination based on nicotine use. He told Filter how he would help customers quit smoking due to “pre-employment nicotine testing.” 

“I worked with a client that I helped to quit smoking, [and] to then also quit vaping, in order to pass a nicotine test to obtain employment at a large bank,” he said by way of example.  

Proponents of the policies might point to this as an example of how they promote healthier choices. But many jobseekers—predominantly from marginalized backgrounds—aren’t able to quit smoking or nicotine, and will be denied opportunities as a result.

Though second-hand smoke may harm others, a simple policy against smoking in indoor workplaces would remove that risk. But it feels particularly absurd that people who have switched to safer, non-combustible nicotine options should be penalized for their efforts to improve their health.

“While it’s commonly accepted that smoking devalues things like company vehicles and indoor spaces, and remediation can be expensive, smoke-free products like vaping, nicotine pouches, smokeless tobacco and NRT don’t cost an employer anything, don’t damage property, and don’t pose a risk to bystanders,” Alex Clark, CEO of the Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives Association, told Filter.

Clark acknowledged that people who smoke take more sick days, on average, than those who don’t. But if companies do insist on anti-smoking hiring policies, he said, then “employers can test for tobacco-specific nitrosamines” as a way of protecting people using low-risk nicotine products from that discrimination.  

Those tests are more sophisticated and costly than plain nicotine testing, he continued, “but if companies are going to actively discriminate against people who use legal products outside of the workplace, they should have to pay extra for that privilege. They will still save money, which is the real intent of these policies, and they don’t have to exclude [so many] talented people from the workforce.”

“Should corporations be able to refuse to hire employees who drink alcohol, use cannabis or eat fast food in their off-hours?”  

Minton similarly believes that concerns about loss of productivity and health care costs underpin companies’ anti-nicotine policies, rather than anything “altruistic.” And she warned that policies adopted in the name of employee health could open the door to other forms of discrimination.

“Policies can be a facade for discriminatory practices,” she told Filter. A comparable example might be refusing to hire people who are overweight, on the basis that obesity is linked with many health problems, and when it’s associated with poverty. 

The “serious ethical concerns” of such policies see issues like “personal freedom, privacy and employer interference in employees’ private lives” at stake, Minton continued. “Should corporations be able to refuse to hire employees who drink alcohol, use cannabis or eat fast food in their off-hours?”  

Refusing to hire people who smoke is “unethical,” stated a 2013 paper in the New England Journal of Medicine. 

The practice “results in a failure to care for people, places an additional burden on already-disadvantaged populations, and preempts interventions that more effectively promote smoking cessation,” wrote the authors, led by medical ethicist Dr. Harald Schmidt of the University of Pennsylvania. 

“We believe that employers should consider more constructive approaches than punishing smokers,” they continued. They identified support and evidence-based smoking cessation programs as the “best approach” for employers, hailing those such as Walgreens which provided “free nicotine-replacement therapy and smoking-cessation counseling to employees.” 

As for hiring decisions, the paper stated, companies “should focus on whether candidates meet the job requirements; then they should provide genuine support to employees who wish to quit smoking,” and in doing so provide “compassion” rather than penalties. 

That chimes with Minton’s view. “No-nicotine hiring policies,” she said, “clearly constitute unfair treatment that denies equal opportunities based solely on non-job-related factors.”

Photograph (cropped) by WestportWiki via Wikimedia Commons/Creative Commons 3.0

The Influence Foundation, which operates Filter, has received donations from KAC Communications, the organizer of GFN. Filter’s Editorial Independence Policy applies.