Possible Smoking Ban in the Miltary
July 10 2009 by 
David R. McGraw II
In a report released this week titled "Combating Tobacco in Military and Veteran Populations", the Institute of Medicine strongly recommended to the Department of Defense (DoD) to curb smoking by veterans and active duty personnel and to go as far as ban it all together. The recommendation points to the rise in health care costs associated with smoking related disease and details how those who have served in the armed forces are 10% more likely to use tobacco products than the average 1 out of every 5 American who smokes.
As the report notes, the DoD already spends $1.6 billion per year on tobacco related care. Couple the steadily more expensive health care costs, and "personnel returning from Iraq and Afghanistan may be 50 percent higher [for using tobacco] than rates among non-deployed military personnel", you can see the writing on the wall for a budget crisis looming for the DoD.
This story caught the eye of Reason and Liberty becuase I wanted to pose the question, if the DoD were to ban smoking on bases, would that be a infringing on a soldiers right to use tobacco, or is it simply a way of protecting the investment the United States Government made in training, and deploying their property in the best fighting shape it can?
(Source: Combating Tobacco in Military and Veteran Populations)
Posted in Military | Liberty | Tobacco | 
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