MANY BUSINESSES ARE CHOOSING TO SCREEN FOR NICOTINE BEFORE THEY HIRE

Businesses in many states are adopting policies that make smoking a reason to turn down job applicants. Their rationale is that they seek to increase worker productivity, reduce health care costs, and promote healthier lifestyles.

The policies come after many have already implemented softer efforts like banning smoking on company premises, offering cessation programs, and increasing health care premiums for smokers, which have not been powerful-enough incentives to quit.

No reliable data on how many businesses have adopted such hiring policies. Twenty-one states do not accept smokers as a protected group of people or recognize a right to smoke, which allows employers to legally refuse to hire smokers.

Why are Employers Targeting Smokers?

Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable disease, disability, and death in the United States. Smoking causes an estimated 480, 000 deaths annually in the United States and 5.7 million deaths globally, making it the most common cause of preventable mortality in the United States and worldwide. [1]

Smoking can also affect workplace productivity and is typically associated with higher healthcare cost. Smoking-related illness in the United States costs more than $300 billion each year, including:

• Nearly $170 billion for direct medical care for adults
• More than $156 billion in lost productivity, including $5.6 billion in lost productivity due to secondhand smoke exposure.
• Employees who smoke cost, on average, $3,391 more a year each for health care and lost productivity, according to federal estimates. [2]

Nicotine Testing

Employers are faced with rising health insurance costs for smokers and the higher rates of chronic diseases in employees who smoke, so many are asking job applicants to submit to a nicotine test. A job applicant that is tobacco-free is a good choice for an employer looking to reduce health insurance costs and promote a healthy office environment.

Hospitals, transportation companies, and utilities are at the forefront in testing employees for tobacco and tobacco-product use to help make hiring decisions.

Some companies test urine for traces of nicotine, while others operate on the honor system.

Nicotine remains in your system only about 2-11 hours after use. As nicotine gets absorbed into the body, it breaks down into cotinine. Cotinine is a metabolite of nicotine that can remain in your saliva, urine, blood, and hair for a more extended period of time.

When conducting a nicotine test screen for job applicant, an employer may ask the applicant for a sample of blood or hair to be sent to a lab. Most saliva and urine tests are done on the spot, with the results returned within minutes.

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[1] U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Health Consequences of Smoking—50 Years of Progress: A Report of the Surgeon General.

[2]https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/economics/econ_facts/index.htm