The prospect of women serving aboard Navy submarines will no doubt pose challenges in logistics and procedures. These may be minor, however, compared to the problems caused by banning smoking aboard subs, which the Navy will do starting December 31st of this year. Apparently roughly 35 to 40 percent of submariners are smokers. Fortunately the Navy will be providing Nicorette gum and nicotine patches to those in need of a nicotine fix. Sending the “boomers” out to sea manned by crews “jonesing” for a cigarette seems perilous indeed.
Plans to allow women and gays, ban smoking shake world of Navy submarines
assuming these sailors live w/ more stress than mast of us will ever know (spend much of their careers within feet of enough explosives to remove an entire city, and do not see the blue sky for months at a time). how do they relieve stress? pushups?
One can only hope that nicotine patches and gum will suffice. On the other hand the second hand smoke will decrease for the two thirds or more of the crew that doesn’t smoke.
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