In what is part of a growing trend among employers looking to minimize skyrocketing health-care costs, Riverside County says it will not hire smokers. Period.

Riverside County wants to cut back their skyrocketing workers’ compensation insurance costs, and is kicking off the effort by banning smoking for anyone who wears a badge.

The sheriff’s department has been ordered to no longer hire deputies who smoke and the ban could extend to all offices of county government.

Those in favor of the ban cite the numerous health risks associated with smoking and that the majority of workers complain come from public-safety personnel.

What’s next? Refusing to hire people with high blood-pressure, poor eyesight, or bad teeth? Why not provide a doctor-approved list of healthy foods and fire employees known or believed to have deviated from that list since, after all, poor nutrition is linked to all sorts of health problems? Or, for that matter, fire anyone who is or becomes overweight?

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