The Wells Fargo News was the internal Company newspaper in 1984. In the February 20 edition of the News, there was a story about Wells Fargo's newly-implemented smoking policy. Before I go into that, let me tell you that the current policy is no smoking at all in any facility, Company-wide. This policy is consistent with applicable laws.

In 1984, the tide was turning  against smoking. Non-smoking was becoming a stance—people who did not smoke were less willing to defer to people who did. By 1984, non-smokers were getting more confident in objecting to smoking. The year before, a smoker with terminal cancer had sued tobacco companies , a topic of heated conversation. Later, Congress banned smoking on all airline flights of two hours or less in 1987. The following year, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop  issued a report that likened addiction to nicotine to that of heroin. Smoking was transforming in the 80s, from an ordinary behavior to an aberation.

People wrestled with the issue in restaurants, public services and the workplace. The strength of the non-smoking position was hard to resist. For one, smoking is bad for everyone's health . For another, there is a moral issue  (pdf) about who should have more freedom—people who pollute or the people who suffer it. Naturally, the answer was to balance it as much as possible. Non-smoking sections were established, laws governing public spaces were passed, and committees were formed to figure out how to be fair at work.

Wells Fargo's policy in 1984 reflected the shift away from accommodating smokers  to accommodating non-smokers. The policy set up boundaries and designated areas. The policy stated the committment to"minimizing the harmful effects and discomfort smoking produces in confined office workspaces." While the new policy was determined to accommodate, "insofar as possible," both smokers and non-smokers, the chief article in the new policy was clearly directed away from smoking as the status quo, and toward non-smoking as normal behavior: "if a satisfactory accommodation cannot be reached," the new policy declared, the default position was "to prohibit smoking in the affected workplace."

Within fifteen years , most localities had developed non-smoking policies that made workplaces smoke free.

(Thanks to Norman for the title. Such good fun!)