Sandy Springs: Hospital snuffs the butts, finally

This week came news that Gwinnett Medical Center has instituted a policy of not hiring smokers. As bad a piece of news as this was for the I-want-to-kill-myself-slowly-by-tobacco crowd, it gets worse. It’s legal.

My question is what in the name of benzopyrene took so long for any medical facility to take this step?

It’s antithetical any hospital makes allowances for smokers — employees, visitors or patients. Unless it’s a ploy to make additional lucre by up-selling.

In my 50s I’ve attempted to become a little more clement. I try not to lean on my car horn when the car ahead doesn’t move when the light turns green. Restaurants are going to screw up the occasional order. But when it comes to public tobacco use I’m illiberal.

Want to sit home, smoke your lungs into oblivion or keep a wad of tobacco in your mouth, occasionally drooling brown spit into a cup — be my guest. Want to do it where we might cross paths? Not so much.

I’m the worst tribulation of any tobacco user — I’m a reformed tobacco user. For years I enjoyed a cigar now and again, even though I knew of the downside. I always savored my cheroot outside and I didn’t inhale, but that didn’t mitigate the risks.

But now I’ve stopped. Thus, my feeling is pretty much if I’m not using tobacco, I don’t want to be around anyone using tobacco. And if a medical facility wants to make sure its future work force is free of tobacco users, I’m all in.

The policy in Gwinnett does not address current employees, but management has pledged to crack down on staffers puffing outside designated areas. I assume that means a visit to H.R., but Tasering offenders sits well with me.

Mind you I’m not corralling you and your pernicious weed into the confines of your home. Want to puff away outside a pub, for example, and I don’t have a problem. The same for places like a large office complex or a shopping mall. As long as the smoke doesn’t find me or I don’t have to see you spit.

But when it comes to the folks that may be taking care of me one day in a critical situation, I’d hate to miss something requisite because a tech was off in Marlboro Country. I’m playing fast and loose with personal freedom. Tough beans. A standing ovation to Gwinnett. What say you Northside, St. Joseph’s, et al.?

And one last thought. Several years ago I was standing on a street corner in Manhattan, waiting for my ride to the airport. It was winter and the weather was brutal. Snow and sleet were being whipped around by a relentless wind. My eyebrows and sideburns had tiny icicles hanging on them.

Just then a gent clad only in a thin windbreaker bolted from the building behind me like the Pamplona bulls were chasing him and fired up a cigarette. I watched him thinking no one in his or her right mind would be outside on such a day.