Snuffing Out Freedom

HUD Secretary Julian Castro has announced that his department intends to federally ban the smoking of cigarettes, pipe and cigar in public housing. The public has 60 days to offer comment. That comment will of course be ignored.

Understand the meaning of this, the federal government is going to order that residents of public housing may not smoke in the privacy of their homes. Not only must these citizens suffer the indignity of needing housing assistance but they will be told that they cannot engage in a legal activity if they so choose.

I personally do not like the smell of cigarettes but I am a pipe and cigar smoker. If Secretary Castro said they would ban smoking in the common areas such as hallways and lobbies I could barely stomach it, wouldn't like it but could tolerate it and even sympathize with it. But a person's home is their personal sanctuary. What this action says is you're poor and therefore at our mercy, we will dictate how you live your life.

You would be allowed to smoke, at the time of this writing, 25 feet away from the building. What if you're physically unable to make that journey?

As with all issues about "what's best for us" it is the children we must protect," the second is the elderly with respiratory problems. Here's an idea, build better housing instead of the delapidated cardboard rat infested tenements we dump the poor in. Will this include stand alone section 8 housing vouchers?

If you think this really doesn't effect you, think again. Millions of Americans live in apartments or rent houses. It is a short walk to prohibiting smoking in these dwellings, your home, by private entities. I lived in apartments for many years and toward the end began bracing myself for a fight on this very issue. In every rental agreement there is a clause called "the right to quiet enjoyment of the premises", this is heavily used to govern noise but it's implications are much broader. One person could complain about a tobacco smell and begin a property management backlash leading to dictating your actions in your own home. I fully expect this situation to play out at some point, it would of course land in the courts and I hope that if HUD carries out this decision they will find themselves being sued.

Our government is supposed to serve our needs, including when we are economically forced to seek assistance. It is disgusting enough that those in need are subjected to demeaning application processes and demonized by certain segments of our society but it is appalling that they are then subjected to constraints on their personal liberty.

If you don't smoke I encourage you to never start but there has never been a truthful national conversation about tobacco. There has been a discussion of cigarettes and the over 500 chemicals used to manufacture them and the cigarette companies have hung themselves and deserve no sympathy. But let's remember that the World Health Organization just released it's report equating processed meats such as bacon, hot dogs and sausage as a class one carcinogen right alongside cigarettes, shall we ban them in public housing for the sake of the children? Grilling was also on that carcinogen list, shall we ban it not only in public housing but in backyards across America?

In the apartments I lived in I never once smelled someone's tobacco but I certainly smelled what they were cooking, often quite nauseous, shall we ban cooking?

Personal liberty matters, without it what's the point of continuing to pretend we live in a free society?