Smoking: don't do it!

Two interesting and somewhat related stories came out recently about smokers and their habits. In the first, a Pennsylvania hospital announced that it will no longer hire smokers and will begin to test its employees for nicotine use. The policy goes into effect February 1st at Geisinger Medical Center and its sister campuses in Danville. According to Geisinger, the “Scranton/Wilkes-Barre region (is) the second-worst smoking metropolitan area in the U.S., pointing to not only an increased risk for lung cancer but an elevated risk of heart disease, too.” (Danville is about 30 miles outside that region.) Scranton/Wilkes-Barre citizens consume an average of 17 cigarettes a day.

Pennsylvania is among 19 states that allow employers to screen job applicants for signs of smoking, CNN reports. Smoking has been banned on the Geisinger campus since 2007. Smoking bans in the workplace are increasingly popular, no matter the field, and employees are being encouraged by their employers to quit because it saves them in productivity and health insurance costs.

So, let’s say you’re a smoker. Are you being honest about it? Or do you hide your smoking habits from loved ones, even your doctor? A related story says that a new study shows “13 percent of smokers don’t tell their doctor that they smoke, likely because they fear the social stigma that comes with being a cigarette-smoker.” Here’s why that’s a horrible idea: Continue reading »

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Smoking in cars with children already banned in four states.

Exposure to second-hand smoke ”is thought to increase a child’s chance of having ear infections, allergies, asthma, wheezing, pneumonia and frequent upper respiratory tract infections,” says Dr. Vincent Iannelli.  Most parents understand the negative effects their smoking can have on their children, and yet they continue to smoke, if not directly in front of their children, somewhat nearby.

Full disclosure: I was a “social” smoker when my daughter was young, and by that I mean I liked to smoke around other people who were smoking.  I did most of my smoking after hours at shows, but I’d occasionally take a puff while out pushing my daughter in her stroller.  After all, we were outside – what harm could it do?

Even smoking while you’re away from your children can have a negative effect on their health.  (Not to mention your own.  I have since quit.)  So it’s no wonder that the South Carolina legislature has taken up a bill that would ban smoking in cars carrying children.  It’s not necessarily a bad idea, but is it fair? Continue reading »

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Join the Great American Smokeout 2010

The American Cancer Society is hosting their annual Great American Smokeout today, November 18, 2010.  If you’ve been looking for a reason to quit, consider today it.  Don’t worry – I’m not here to preach to you as someone who doesn’t get it.  I started smoking about 8 years ago, oddly enough, while I was playing Rizzo in Grease.  (Who thought it was a good idea to give the performers real cigarettes?!)  Sure, I suppose I didn’t have to inhale, but I’m a method actor.  (Cough cough.)  Which is literally what happened after a while.  I started smoking “socially,” but don’t you know I just love to socialize?  Then I started buying my own packs, and smoking to relieve the stress of my temp job on Wall Street and the stress of my marriage, and yes, the stress of being a parent.

I did quit smoking while I was pregnant, but as the nature of tobacco addiction would have it, I started up again when my daughter was about six months old.  I’d only smoke after she’d gone to bed, and never in the house.  But then I figured, hey, if I can smoke outside, I can have one while I’m pushing her in the stroller.  When my daughter was little, we lived in Harlem, and I was far from the only parent who smoked.  My ex (who I was still married to at the time) didn’t make much of an issue about it, so I didn’t really have anyone encouraging me to quit.

And then in January 2008, just a few months after my daughter turned two, my Dad died of lung cancer.  Eight days after being diagnosed. Continue reading »

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Move over, David After Dentist. The two-year-old smoking cigarettes is the Internet video sensation of the day.

It’s pretty scary to see a two-year-old smoking cigarettes like a pro. The image is so wrong it makes me want to shout at the screen.

Like most sensationally wrong things, though, this one is rare. There’s hardly an epidemic of toddler smokers out there. I’m not worried about my own two-year-old being offered her first cigarette by a delinquent preschooler at playgroup.

Continue reading »

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Still another  reason to quit smoking:  a new study has found that third-hand smoke (the nicotine that adheres to surfaces long after the cigarette is extinguished) can be harmful to all humans, but especially babies and toddlers.

Continue reading »

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When I was a kid I read a book where the kids switched out their dad’s cigarettes for rolled up pieces of paper. John Mellencamp’s son is doing the 2009 version.

Speck Mellencamp, the thirteen-year-old who sometimes plays on stage with John “no longer Cougar” Mellencamp, has started a Facebook page specifically to get his dad to quit his smoking. Continue reading »

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