Hello all, I am new to site and wanted to introduce myself. I am a 24 year old proud smoker and proud to fight for my civil rights. I have an issue however which has really turned me on to the fight for smokers rights.

I am currently in my second week of externship for a medical program I am in. The extern is not my employer and thus I am not getting paid, but must adhere to policy etc..

The first week went well until two days ago I was questioned on if I was a smoker because someone had said they smelled smoke on me after returning from my lunch break. I explained to the admin. that I felt that was a personal question and declined to answer, her response was " I will ask you one more time". I responed yes, proudly and said that it is something I do during personal time and would never allow patients or the like to smell or see me smoke even though it is my right.
She explained that I must only smoke in the evening after leaving the site.

Is this against the law????

In the medical field I understand that you should present a healthy demeanor to patients, but how many times do you see nurses in front of hospitals smoking away? Furthermore, if you must always present a healthy lifestyle shouldn't doctors and the like watch there weight as well. Obesity is much more of a problem and everyone ignores it. It's like saying it's okay to be a fat ass doctor but if you are a smoker you are all of a sudden an unproffesional.

Any feedback, thoughts, suggestions would be so much appreciated. I need to understand my rights on this issue.

Thank you.

To some extent, your rights depend on the laws of your state and where you smoke when you go on your lunch break (e.g. whether it is off the grounds of the place where you are doing your externship and whether smoking is permitted on the grounds).

Since you're not an employee, that further complicates the matter and would indicate that since you're not salaried, if you smoke during your lunch break, then it would seem that that's your prerogative.

As Wanda already said, it's pretty much according to the laws of your particular state. Don't like the laws where you are, then either fight them or else move to a place that better complements your political wishes and desires or sense of fairness and justice.

The only suggestion I have is to either not smoke on your lunch break or else schedule enough time into your routine to perform the perfunctory "birdbath" primping and preening to wash whatever few offending molecules of tobacco smoke residue off your hands and body that may be noticed by your tattling co-worker(s) so that your administrator is no longer informed about your "non-compliance" with policy. You should show up after lunch as fresh and hygienically acceptable to their policy as you do first thing in the morning (and don't smoke a cigarette in your car on the way to work!).

I view your situation as I would any workplace dress code. You may be more comfortable in jeans and tennis shoes and the business might even get more productivity out of you with you being more comfortable, but if they require a business suit at all times, who would you complain to? You either follow the code or you go look for employment elsewhere.

I fight for smokers rights, but not for our rights to trump over employers' or private property ownership rights. I believe that if we don't like the employers' policies, then we can always go into business for ourselves to set our own rules.

For example, the anti-smokers continually claim that bans are for the workers, then they also claim that employers can discriminate against smokers in their hiring practices for a number of reasons. Well, to me, that duplicity in their logic in justifying the legislating of bans in any privately owned and operated workplace means I should similarly be allowed to discriminate against whiny, self-absorbed anti-smokers and only hire smokers or those non-smokers who don't care and preserve my private property rights to allow smoking in my privately owned place of business. There is absolutely no justifcation for legislating a ban. The consumers can decide who they want to patronize in a free market society. And anti-smokers can just go bugger off.

Interesting view in regards to my topic, but
A) I'm not their employee, i'm an externship student who has not signed any policy
B) In any case, everyone should follow their employers policies at work.
C) I was smoking at a subway 4 blocks away from their property.

Do you see my point, it's my personal business if I want to smoke on my way to work just as it is my right to gorge on a pizza and become obese if I choose to do so...where do they draw the lines on what is "acceptable" to them and what is not. I'm not a liability for them, since i am not employed so the excuse of rising health care costs is invalid, but even if I were an employee of theirs it is unfair and dangerous to allow employers to discriminate against certain employees because they believe their private lifestyle choices are unhealthy and lead to higher health insurance costs. To begin with, it is unclear that employers can achieve significant savings through lifestyle discrimination. Also, if it becomes acceptable to deny employment because of potentially higher health care costs, people who are capable of working will be effectively banned from any employment, preventing them from providing for themselves or their dependents. Finally, even if employers could achieve substantial savings, sacrificing the private lives of all working Americans is too high a price to pay

Thanks for clarifying the situation. Given the info in your last post, I'd say that you do indeed have a right to smoke on your way to work or on your lunch break or any other time you're away from this particular property.

It's difficult to believe that since you were smoking OUTSIDE that enough tobacco smoke clung to you that it would have been detectable by the busybody, but these days it seems some folks have the noses of bloodhounds when it comes to tobacco (even though their own smells might be enough to knock you over).

I do see and fully understand your point. However, I have to apologize for quickly trying to give you the first couple of "solutions" that popped into my head when there are many more that may be more advantageous or preferable to you. In fact, the options are only limited by your own imagination.

I think we're in what is commonly known as "violent agreement" here. You already stated in your first post that, "The extern is not my employer and thus I am not getting paid, but must adhere to policy etc..". So you already understand the primary point I was trying to make that you must comply with policy.

You're absolutely right that the admin person probably went too far in stating that you couldn't smoke off-premises on your lunch break in order to comply with whatever policy they have. I didn't disagree with that. However, I have to give both of you the benefit of the doubt. After all, people are human, and most don't handle one on one confrontation very well, especially with relative strangers. It often creates a situation where one or both parties say things they really didn't mean to say. I wasn't there and can only try to figure out what actually happened by only reading your version of the conversation. I can't tell what tone you used or the non-verbals you may have subconsciously conveyed when presented your position. You wrote that you "proudly" stated it was your personal habit on your personal time, and in your defense of this habit that you would never allow patients or the like to smell or see you smoke. Unfortunately, if in the spur of the moment that's what you did say to defend your rights, well, that really couldn't support you position, for somebody obviously did smell it or see you smoke, or you both wouldn't be having the conversation in the first place.

As you explained it, I perceive that policy to simply be to not smell like tobacco smoke while on the premises and interacting with patients. My suggestion was either to abide by her statement (consider that as just one out of several viable solutions even though you may consider it a violation of your civil rights) or else hit a rest room on your way back to "freshen up" before returning. I just may not have conveyed it very well with my previous choice of words. Heck, you may not even need to use a rest room. Just carry alcohol wipes with you to wash your hands and then pop some breath mints. Whatever you do, just don't over compensate by dousing yourself in purfume. I do know a dental assistant who strangely enough worked for her non-smoking husband. She would spray her hair and clothing with some Avon product that had a very subtle odor that was sufficient to hide evidence of her habit from both her husband and his patients, but it wasn't overwhelming. You may even find you have some peers there who already have a good game plan on how to comply without giving up.

Or else you can risk confrontation with this admin person again to clarify her position. I've learned that in this approach it's usually best to use humor. For example, you may open up with, "I'm sorry, I really tried not to smoke as you directed, but I'm such a addict that I just can't make it through an eight hour day without smoking an entire carton of cigarettes and freebasing a couple of cigars during my lunch break. Do you know of any tricks to maintain compliance or anyone with any ideas on how to help me." You never know, that specific confrontation may have occurred because she was just having a bad hair day and took offense to the way you presented your case. Whatever you do, please realize that acting like anti-smokers do in asserting your rights doesn't always help our cause and might more often hinder it. We can't fight them by alienating folks who might actually be empathetic to our cause, but they get turned off if any of us come across acting as nasty and obnoxious as devout anti-smokers do. And don't get me wrong, for I'm not saying that you are that person. It could be a previous confrontation left such a bad taste in her mouth and she was waiting for an opportunity to jump on the next smoker who tried to assert their rights, and you happen to be it no matter how well you presented your case.

Also, one last point. I'm a firm believer in not pointing out flaws in other groups of people, like derogatory comments made against the obese. That tactic rarely, if ever, succeeds. Believe me, we should be brothers and sisters in arms against the fascist forces trying to take all our collective rights away. If we continually point out discrepancies in the treatment of other groups compared to ours, all that does is help create other disgruntled enemies against us and increase the fascists power to continue to persecute us. That's what they do, divide and conquer.

Don't worry. Situations such as this will become the eventual basis to erode any legitimacy the anti-smokers claim they have to institute behavioral control based legislation to control us.

First, you should ask to see the written policy, if one. There might be an employee handbook, if there is no written policy, then it might be the supervisors personal preference, and not the Hospital.