Theoretically, when a car is parked on someone's property (a hospital in this case)

[silverweb]

4. That's really draconian.

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]I have no idea about the legality of their demands, but I'd have a serious problem with them if I worked there, especially the parts involving potential surveillance of the inside your personal vehicle and not allowing e-cigarettes.

There is absolutely nothing about e-cigarettes that is of risk to other people (like 2nd-hand smoke is). It's merely another nicotine delivery system, like gum and patches, which doctors routinely prescribe and hospital pharmacies provide.

Nicotine is being studied and used as a cognitive and mood enhancer, and has been found to delay onset and progression of some forms of dementia, including Alzheimer's. (Here's just one of many article abstracts from PubMed: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1579636.) Nicotine is medicine for many people and e-cigarettes are just another, more pleasant way of administering it.

I suspect their reasons have to do with not being able to tell just by looking exactly what a person may be smoking. If you draw on a real or e-cig on your way out of the parking lot, or keep either in your car, I really think that kind of nosy surveillance should be off limits to them.

Your hospital's administration has, I believe, stepped over a line and I'd dearly love to hear what the union's lawyers and other civil liberties lawyers have to say about this.