Health insurance for smoking employees

From John Wesdorp, Wilmslow, Cheshire, UK

On a related issue to smoking in the workplace, I believe employers should do more to discourage smokers among their workforce. There is a considerable cost attached to employing smokers. They need regular breaks during which works stops and when the nicotine craving sets in smokers are more prone to making mistakes. I am actually quite surprised by the fact that most smokers know so little about their own smoking habit. For a start, there is nothing positive to be gained from smoking. The one single reason that anybody smokes is to temporarily stop the craving for nicotine. There is absolutely no other reason and if anyone thinks they actually like smoking, you have brainwashed yourself into believing that you enjoy inhaling toxic fumes; you don’t, as you have to override your immune system in order to inhale that poisonous tobacco smoke.

There are no highs from smoking, there is no pleasure derived from smoking. The taste is awful, the smell is horrendous, smokers tend to be more stressed than non-smokers and when they even think they cannot smoke they go into panic mode.

The calming effects from lighting a cigarette are created by the deep breaths taken when inhaling the smoke (not by the smoke itself) and by the temporary lift of craving for nicotine. It is the same kind of pleasure you get from banging your head against a wall for a while and then stopping; that feels good too, but in fact it is no different from before you started banging your head, it is only perception. So in essence, every smoker (no exception) smokes only to temporarily “feel normal” (i.e. without craving for nicotine)!

We have not mentioned or discussed health yet. There are enough websites where the smoker can get both frightened and so nervous that the first thing he/she wants to do is grab a cigarette and then forget about all the harm it can do to the body as quickly as possible. Frightening smokers does not work and never will. The brain does not work that way, addiction tends to prevail over common sense simply by running away. Let me put it in a different way: smokers are victims of the most efficient killing machine the world has ever known. The tobacco industry has managed to kill 100 million people in the last 20 years alone, which is more than a century of wars including 2 world wars and a holocaust together.

It is an absolute abomination that such an industry can exist and thrive in our society, which is only sustained by buying political votes against smoking prohibition. Big Tobacco’s marketing is exclusively aimed at children who are persuaded to think that smoking is hip, rebellious and even a fashion statement. 3 to 4 billion per year is spent on marketing to persuade our kids to light up. 1/3rd of those children, who succumb, will eventually tragically die from a smoking related disease.

The tobacco industry is very good at creating and feeding false information about civil rights and a person’s freedom related to smoking. Those are hollow phrases, an intellectual travesty, mindlessly repeated with misplaced indignation based on the perception of state "nannyism" and a wonderful excuse to justify and perpetuate the smoking addiction. References to civil rights are a very effective “smokescreen” created for the sole purpose of persuading people to continue spending money on tobacco products and to further enrich Big Tobacco and its shareholders.

What it really means to smoke is to be robbed, cheated, poisoned, manipulated, lied to, ignored and left out in the cold, not to mention being deliberately and unscrupulously invaded with highly toxic substances that are especially created to keep the smoker addicted, paid for by the smoker and adding up to several hundred thousands over a smoker’s lifetime.

Most smokers want to quit but can't because nicotine is highly addictive, you are being lied to if anybody tries to persuade you otherwise. The fear of not being able to cope without smoking is like fear of pain which, in essence, is fear of death.

The pharmaceutical companies are also in on the act. NRT (chewing gum, nicotine patches, lozenges etc.) are just a way for Big Pharma to peddle their nicotine to the already addicted. Pharmaceutical nicotine doesn't make you stop, a recent study shows less than 2 percent of smokers who use NRT actually quit long term and those would have likely achieved that doing cold turkey anyway. I wouldn't call that very effective, if at all. To give somebody more nicotine (the stuff he/she is already addicted to and wants to quit from) has to my mind always seem absolutely ridiculous and a ploy to make money out of those who can be easily persuaded. In my view, in most cases NRT prolongs the smoking addiction. Some of the drugs the pharmaceutical industry produce, reduce the craving for nicotine but at a price, the side effects cause severe depression and suicidal tendencies. Good idea that, let’s give up smoking by jumping off a building – pardon my sarcasm.

It is time to fight back and stop being a hostage of the tobacco industry. Don’t accept the lies, stop deluding yourself and stop allowing your life to be both dictated and ruined by tobacco products that do nothing for you and that you can easily do without. Every ex-smoker lives without nicotine quite successfully and without any harm and so can you! Whatever you do, please don't ever quit trying to quit.

If you really have problems quitting smoking, you can always try a new way of quitting smoking with http://www.nosmokingagain.com. You have nothing to lose as the offer is to help you: No-Cure-No-Pay!

From Surplus Stock, BH, CA

Yes it is possible and you have to consult your attorneys for the appropriate documentation. It can be a demotivating factor for the smoking employees if you can bear it. we at surplusstock.com have experienced it.