Losing privacy in the comfort of your home

By Scott Ammons
Senior Staff Writer

Smoking cigarettes is a bad habit that can produce deadly results - I understand this.

With that being said, I am absolutely outraged at the latest actions of a Michigan insurance company that forbids its employees to smoke, even on their own time in their own home.

The company cites rising insurance costs as the reason they took this drastic action. Employees were told that they would have to submit to a breathalyzer if a company official suspects that they are smoking, even though nicotine is a legal drug.

I can understand banning smoking in a public place, but in the privacy of your own home? That’s carrying the smoking issue a bit too far. While the United States Constitution does not specifically guarantee citizens a right to privacy, citizens do have certain expectations of privacy.

Those that are backing this company’s decision to curtail smoking in the privacy of one’s home need to consider the repercussions of their actions. This could be a mere stepping stone for other policies and actions.

For instance obesity - many Americans have a problem with their weight. What happens when companies institute mandatory fitness programs and require every employee to weigh in on a weekly basis, because obesity has been linked to heart disease, diabetes and severe back problems? If employees don’t meet and maintain their recommended weight, will they be fired because of the skyrocketing costs of healthcare?

It’s not as farfetched as it seems. A small crack in the door of legal loopholes can lead to citizens losing their rights. A perfect example is prayer in public schools. Freedom of religion and separation of church and state were the key arguments of this case. Prayer was not mandatory in schools; it was simply an option that students and faculty had, until “One” person decided they wanted it banned. As a result, prayer was banned.

I’m not arguing for prayer in school. I’m simply pointing out the power of one person in a democracy such as ours. This issue is about freedoms. It isn’t about healthcare control.

Sociologist and community activist Saul David Alinsky wrote, “There can be no democracy unless it is a dynamic democracy. When our people cease to participate- to have a place in the sun-then all of us will wither in the darkness of decadence. All of us will become mute, demoralized, lost souls.”

Democracy is a double-edged sword that must be handled with care and common sense. Stripping citizens of their rights to feel secure in their own homes is not care, common sense or democracy. People who don’t smoke, though, do have a right to be protected.