Lockheed Martin To Punish Its Smokers

Fort Worth's Lockheed Martin has announced it will ban smoking at all of its facilities. Currently, there are designated outdoor smoking areas, but now smoking will be prohibited on all company property. The smoking ban will also apply to visitors. Any violations of the smoking ban will result in disciplinary action against the employee.

The company says it is doing this in an effort to lower insurance costs. They currently pay around $800 million a year for employee health insurance. Even though the ban does not cover what employees do in their off-time, company officials hope this will encourage workers to quit smoking. Lockheed believes that unsafe worker lifestyle choices accounts for nearly half of the large insurance premiums. The smoking ban will go into effect on January 1st.

Of course, of the many unsafe lifestyle choices, smoking is the one they would choose. All of the government propaganda in the last few years has made it easy to pick on smokers. No one minds spending all the tax money received from smokers. In fact, Texas has just passed a new cigarette tax that will raise the price of cigarettes by 25-35%. But no one wants to give smokers any rights.

This is not even a second-hand smoke issue. Current smoking areas are outside and away from other workers. This is a company trying to dictate the private choices made by their employees. What will be next? There are many choices a worker could make that might affect his/her health. Are they going after worker's who don't make "company-approved" food choices? Are they going after worker's that drink alcohol? Are they going after workers that have unsafe or unprotected sex? Are they going after bad drivers? Are they going after workers who don't exercise? How about workers whose families have a poor health record?

All of these things can affect a person's health as much, if not more than smoking. Government and employers have the right/duty to tell workers what choices are the healthiest and safest, but they do not have the right to make the choice for the worker. In a free country, everyone should have the right to make their own choices, even if those choices are poor ones. In a dictatorship, you can save money by forcing choices on people. In a free country, you can't.

Do we still want to live in a free country, or do we want Big Brother making our choices for us? It starts with the smokers. Where will it end?