Because Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) can migrate between units in multifamily housing, causing respiratory illness, heart disease, cancer, and other adverse health effects in neighboring families, the Department is encouraging PHAs to adopt non-smoking policies. By reducing the public health risks associated with tobacco use, this notice will enhance the effectiveness of the Department's efforts to provide increased public health protection for residents of public housing. Smoking is also an important source of fires and fire-related deaths and injuries.

While those living in government owned housing voluntarily cede many of their rights and responsibilities to the government itself, this exposes yet again one of the favorite tactics that bureaucrats have in wresting liberties away from individuals; that is, money with strings.

If you are going to enjoy the benefits of a public park, you had better not light up. If you are going to open a business that needs a license, you had better operate it in an approved manner. If you are going to use a public health care system, you had better put on that helmet. If you are going to build a home with a loan underwritten by a government agency, you had better put in an access ramp. And, if you are going to live in government housing, you had better walk off the property every time you want to grab a smoke.

Where will it end? Not all subsidized housing is government owned. Yet, if the government has franchise to control the behaviors of those who choose to live within the walls it wholly provides, could it not conceivably have the ability to control the behaviors of people that enjoy the benefits of housing units that accept reduced rent subsidies?

If that is the case, why can't the government force preferred behaviors onto those who purchased their home with a strings-attached loan guaranteed by government? Why can't it force behaviors on people who build their homes during a process that requires government inspection after government inspection before occupancy? Why can't it force behaviors on people who can only access their property through easement on public lands? On and on and on.

No, ETS cannot pole vault--it merely travels out the window of a smoker's flat, takes a hard right or left, travels horizontally down the walk for twenty feet or so, and then eddies through the windows or door of an unsuspecting non-smoking neighbor. All this while maintaining the power to kill!