American tobacco company bans employees smoking at their desks

WITH cigarettes being pushed into oblivion, one company was determined to buck the trend, allowing staff to light up in the lift and at their desks ... but that’s all about to change.

A CIGARETTE maker is snuffing out smoking in its offices and buildings.

The United States’ second-biggest tobacco company informed employees on Wednesday that beginning next year, the use of traditional cigarettes, cigars or pipes will no longer be permitted at employee desks or offices, conference rooms, hallways and elevators.

Lighting up already is prohibited on factory floors and in cafeterias and fitness centres.

The no-smoking policy will go into effect once the company builds indoor smoking areas for those still wanting to light up indoors, a spokesman said.

“We believe it’s the right thing to do and the right time to do it because updating our tobacco use policies will better accommodate both nonsmokers and smokers who work in and visit our facilities,” he said. “We’re just better aligning our tobacco use policies with the realities of what you’re seeing in society today.”

While the company will no longer allow smoking, it will allow the use of smokeless tobacco products, including electronic cigarettes, moist snuff and pouches of finely milled tobacco called snus.

The company also will allow the use of a cigarette that uses a carbon tip that heats tobacco after being lit by a lighter.

Starting next year the company will ban smoking at desks for employees.

The percentage of the company's 5200 employees that smoke is in line with the smoking rate in the US that is about 18 per cent of adults, according to the federal Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.

Meanwhile, the owner of the biggest cigarette maker in the US doesn’t allow smoking on factory floors and in places like elevators or hallways, said a spokesman. Employees with separate offices can smoke in them, but otherwise the company has designated smoking areas in office buildings, conference areas and cafeterias, he said.