Twenty-nine U.S. states have laws prohibiting employers from refusing to hire job candidates because they smoke, but 21 states have no such restrictions. Many employers in those 21 states — including a large number of health care organizations — have instituted policies that ban the hiring of smokers. In a new "Perspective" in the Journal of the American Medical Association, former Commonwealth Fund Harkness Fellow Harald Schmidt and coauthors argue that refusing to hire people who smoke is unethical.