Trailer company says it will stop hiring nicotine users in 21 US states

U-Haul International employs 30,000 people across the US and Canada.

U-Haul International has announced plans to stop interviewing and hiring nicotine users, including people who use e-cigarettes and vaping products.

The well-known truck and trailer rental company approved the nicotine-free policy set to go into effect February 1 in more than 20 states where the company operates, the Arizona Republic reported Wednesday.

Those states include Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.

People hired before the policy goes into effect won't be affected, company officials said. U-Haul International employs around 4,000 people in Arizona, where the company is based, and 30,000 across the US and Canada, officials said.

In each of the 21 states, it is legal not to hire people who use nicotine, company officials said. Employers in 17 states are also legally allowed to test for nicotine, officials said.

U-Haul International has not indicted if it would conduct tests, officials said. The company expects the nicotine-free hiring policy would help create a more healthy corporate culture, officials said. The new policy will focus on the health of team members and employees, while also decreasing healthcare costs, company officials said.

Turning point': Number of male smokers falling for first time, says WHO

Declines in tobacco use amongst males mark a turning point in the fight against tobacco, says WTO.

The number of male tobacco users is falling for the first time, the World Health Organisation said Thursday, hailing a "major shift" in efforts to kick the world's deadly tobacco addiction.

The number of women and girls who use tobacco products has been steadily declining for years.

But tobacco use among males -- who account for the overwhelming majority of smokers -- has until now been expanding.

In a new report, the UN health agency hailed the beginning decline as a powerful indication that anti-smoking campaigns around the globe had begun to pay off.

But it warned that far more was needed to kick the addiction, which is estimated to kill some eight million people each year.

"Declines in tobacco use amongst males mark a turning point in the fight against tobacco," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement, saying the shift was "driven by governments being tougher on the tobacco industry."

For the past two decades, global tobacco use has been slowly dwindling, from 1.397 billion users in 2000 to 1.337 billion in 2018.

This means around 60 million fewer people were using tobacco products, even as the global populations has swelled.

But that reduction has been strongly driven by declines in the number of women and girls using tobacco products, WHO said, with the number dropping from 346 million in 2000 to 244 million last year.

Over the same period, the number of male tobacco users rose by around 40 million, from 1.05 billion to 1.093 billion.

But men, who today account for more than 80 percent of all tobacco users, are finally beginning to kick the habit.

Thursday's report covers the use of cigarettes, cigars, pipes, water pipes, smokeless products like kretek and heated tobacco products, but not electronic cigarettes.

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