Smoking would be prohibited in public housing homes nationwide under a proposed federal rule announced on Thursday, a move that would affect nearly one million households and open the latest front in the long-running campaign to curb unwanted exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke.
I am second to no one in my loathing of tobacco smoke. I vividly remember trying to hold my breath as my mother filled our car with smoke, and I remember too, since almost every adult smoked in those bygone days, all of us kids leaving wedding receptions for the outdoors so we could breathe. I count it as one of our nation’s great accomplishments that we have banished the smoker from our restaurants and other public places.
But, this truly is a terrible, horrible idea.
I happen to represent a public housing authority, so it would be my client’s, and by extension my, sad duty to enforce such a ban. Smoking is an addiction, foisted on many by the tobacco companies that are no better than pushers. It afflicts the poor in disproportionate numbers, so it is statistically the case that a greater proportion of housing authority tenants will be victims of this legal, addictive drug, than in the general population.
There is only one sanction open to the housing authority if a tenant ignores the rules and continues to smoke, and that is eviction. The policy of our housing authority is to avoid eviction whenever possible. If a person is behind in his or her rent, we have a standard repayment policy, allowing for repayment, under a court stipulation, over the period of a year. Miss a payment and you risk losing your house, but most people don’t miss a payment.
If this policy goes into effect, we will have two options: ignore it, or enforce it. If we enforce it, we must enforce it in an even handed manner. One of the reasons we stick to our standard repayment agreement is that it helps us avoid any claim of discrimination. No matter your gender, religion, color or sexual orientation, if you are behind in your rent, you will be offered a one year repayment plan. Take it or leave it. Pretty much everyone takes it.
By the way, not enforcing is not really an option. When people live close together, neighborly feuds tend to develop, and it’s certain as night follows day that some Hatfield will demand enforcement against the McCoy next door.
So, what do we do about smoking? It is highly unlikely that most smokers will be able to simply stop because we impose a rule on them. Once we get them to court we could put them on a sort of probation, but the likelihood is extreme that they’ll fail that. It is an addiction, after all, and a powerful one. So, ultimately, they’ll lose their homes, and to what end? Perhaps the smoke in my next door neighbor’s apartment poses some slight health risk to me, but is it really good policy to inflict homelessness on people because they are addicted to tobacco? Moreover, this is a policy that operates primarily on the poor, and a like policy would never be imposed on the middle class, much less the privileged rich.
It would be bad public policy to outlaw smoking altogether. We need only look a the devastating effects of the “war on drugs” to prove that. But at least outlawing tobacco altogether would be non-discriminatory. Sometimes the best plan is to do nothing.
Post a Comment