NICOTINE ADDICTION IS RULED A DISABILITY IN BRITISH COLUMBIA

In a landmark ruling in British Columbia, a labor arbitrator has said
employees addicted to nicotine are disabled, and entitled to the same
rights as those with a physical or mental handicap.

The case involved workers at an iron and zinc smelter who had argued
that not allowing them to smoke on the job violated their rights.

In the United States, nicotine addiction is not considered a
disability under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act or under
separate Washington state human-rights laws.

But the British Columbia ruling questions whether smokers anywhere
could argue that going hours without a cigarette can be so
debilitating it should be considered a disability.

"We're certainly not promoting smoking in any way, shape or form
anywhere," said Rod Audia, president of Local 480 of United
Steelworkers of America in Trail, B.C., one of the unions that filed
the lawsuit. "My concern is those people who are facing termination or
loss of income because of their inability to kick the nicotine habit."

The arbitration began in 1998, after Cominco, an iron and zinc
smelting company, enforced a smoking policy prohibiting its
approximately 1,900 employees from smoking anywhere on the company's
450-acre campus - even in parking lots and employees' cars.

It had previously banned smoking from areas with known safety risks -
such as sites with a risk of explosion from high dust concentrations.
But it later expanded the rule, citing the increased costs of
employing smokers, the dangers of second-hand smoke and the potential
transmission of contaminants from the smelter to employees who smoke
without properly cleaning their hands.

Cominco spokesman Dave Delong said the lead and zinc at the site can
increase smokers' risks of health problems.

According to Dalton Larson, the arbitrator, the problem with the
no-smoking policy was that noncompliance could result in
termination.

"It assumes that addicted smokers will be able to control their habit
through the normal coercive effect of discipline," he wrote in his
138-page decision.

Audia, the union president, said Cominco offered its employees free
enrollment in smoking-cessation programs weeks before the policy was
to take place. But, he said, many of the 500 employees who smoke still
"wondered how they would be able to cope."

One employee who testified at an arbitration hearing brought a
doctor's letter giving details of the withdrawal symptoms she faced
and another physician testified on behalf of the union that severely
addicted smokers are as disabled as those with a mental disorder.

The arbitrator found that Cominco's no-smoking policy is sound, Delong
said. But the company might challenge the arbitrator's conclusion that
it discriminates against employees with severe tobacco addiction
because they're disabled.

"I think everyone has a hard time with that label," Delong said.
"There was evidence heard that there are physical withdrawal from
nicotine, but to what extent that's disabling, that's the question."

In any event, nicotine addiction is not likely to become a legally
defined disability in Washington, according to Toby Olson, director of
Gov. Gary Locke's Committee on Disability Issues and Employment, an
advisory group.

"Courts have been very, very overly narrow in their determination of
what is determined a disability," he said. And the Americans With
Disabilities Act specifically says that no disability can be construed
to preclude a workplace prohibitions on smoking.

Dr. Daniel Kivlahan, an addiction specialist at the University of
Washington Medical School, said smokers' response to nicotine
withdrawal varies and the effects can be mitigated by nicotine patches
and other aids.

But, he said, for some who go cold turkey, the effects can be
dramatic.

"I could say that it could get bad enough that it could interfere with
functioning to varying degrees," including interference with their
work, he said.