Employers in Maine hoping to keep smokers off their payrolls are out of luck.

Since 1991, Maine law has prohibited employers from refusing to hire a person or in any way discriminating against a current worker because of their tobacco use when not working.

Under the law, “An employer or an agent of an employer may not require, as a condition of employment, that any employee or prospective employee refrain from using tobacco products outside the course of that employment.”

The law goes on to state that an employer can in no other way “discriminate against any person with respect to the person’s compensation, terms, conditions or privileges of employment for using tobacco products outside the course of employment as long as the employee complies with any workplace policy concerning use of tobacco.”

Maine is one of 29 states that have passed laws prohibiting employers from refusing to hire workers because of legal things they do in their private lives.