Drug testing for alcohol and drugs is plenty pernicious, but now add to that testing for nicotine. Seems like if you're a heavy smoker, you might not want to accept a job at a company that screens for nicotine, but one unlucky smoker did exactly that and wound up getting fired over it. Unfortunately, the company in question doesn't seem to distinguish between "quitting smoking" and "using nicotine-based smoking cessation methods," as it seems he was fired for having too much nicotine in his system. Still, it all seems pretty ridiculous:
"It's a freedom thing: 90 percent of Americans support me and in Europe it's more like 100 percent," said Rodrigues, who claims that since he was fired last year he has featured in newspaper articles in Britain and appeared on radio shows in Poland and Lithuania.
A poll published last week showed that most Americans think Rodrigues's firing was unfair. Only seven percent of Americans think employers should be allowed to sack workers who smoke, the survey said.
The flip side of this approach, of course, is the case of a school in Australia that has allowed a 16-year-old student to have officially sanctioned smoke breaks, on account of how she needs cigarettes to stay calm - despite the fact that she isn't old enough to legally smoke in the first place. Wacky! And how exactly did this young student wind up in such a position? Her mother is at least partially to blame:
Tara's mother said she had started rewarding Tara with just six cigarettes a day if she did chores and behaved at school.
"It's not like I want my kid to smoke. I've done everything to get her to stop it, so if I can control it and say 'when you can have a cigarette, you do chores', that might help.
"I don't want her smoking. It's the last thing you want to let your kid do.''
Honestly, I can think of several other things that would more likely qualify for the "last thing" I'd want my kid to do. But still, the notion that this kid's doctors colluded in basically writing her a permission slip for this kind of behavior does seem a bit dodgy.
Of course, in terms of getting through high school, at least smoking is still
cool, so she's got that going for her.
