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Freakonomics Radio

123. Help Wanted. No Smokers Need Apply

Freakonomics Radio

Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.632K Ratings

🗓️ 17 April 2013

⏱️ 6 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In many states, it is perfectly legal to not hire someone who smokes. Should employers also be able to weed out junk-food lovers or motorcyclists -- or anyone who wants to have a baby?

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

From APM, American Public Media, and WNYC.

0:07.0

This is Freakonomics Radio on Marketplace.

0:11.0

Here's the host of Marketplace, Kyra's Doll.

0:16.0

Time now for a little Freakonomics Radio.

0:18.0

It's that moment every couple of weeks we talk to Stephen Dumbner,

0:21.0

the co-author of the books and the blog of the same name.

0:23.0

It is the hidden side of everything.

0:25.0

Dumbner a long time, no talk, man.

0:27.0

Great to be back, Ky. Thanks for having me.

0:29.0

You bet.

0:30.0

You trained as a Navy pilot, I know.

0:32.0

I wonder if you ever thought about afterward working as a commercial pilot?

0:36.0

Was that ever a plan?

0:37.0

Yeah, no, not really. That was never my thing.

0:39.0

Yeah.

0:40.0

Well, if you had, and if you had interviewed with, let's say, Alaska Airlines,

0:45.0

there's something you would have needed to know.

0:47.0

Here's an airline spokesperson, Marianne Lindsay.

0:50.0

In general, there's a question that's asked, have you smoked or used tobacco products within the last,

0:57.0

I believe, it's six months, and we go by how the employee responds to that question.

1:04.0

And then before they are hired, they have a drug test that they take.

1:09.0

That detects a continuous.

...

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