[butterbomb]

Funny. At least since Covid, I’ve noticed a number of employers, often at municipalities or other governments, but sometimes at private companies, are adding terms that employees cannot use any nicotine products whatsoever. What’s even stranger is the always go out of their way to explicitly note that non tobacco cessation aids are not allowed either. Seems like pure virtue signaling, though at least one person has suggested to me that the companies engaging in this are serious and go as far as blood testing.

[JohnFen]

This is almost always because the company gets a break on health insurance premiums for enacting such a policy.

[butterbomb]

Ah that makes sense. Was something changed recently to enable this? I’ve certainly seen employer health insurance discounts for not smoking for years, but the complete ban, listed in a job application, and explicitly including cessation aids feels like something I’ve only seen in recent years.

[giraffe_lady]

The first time I heard about it was hospital groups and other healthcare employers around 2010. Like you said it was originally an optional bonus/discount but even then there were explicit plans to make it mandatory over some years.

The timing as I remember it matches up with ACA passing (optional) and going into effect (mandatory) so may have something to do with health insurer costs related to that. But I don't know enough about it to guess more, just a suspicion.