Bringing smoking bans home

The New England Journal of Medicine contains a piece this week on whether or not smoking should be banned in public housing, as the New York Times reports. On the one hand, we have those who argue that any amount of smoke, no matter how small, is harmful, and that the right of nonsmokers to live without that harm trumps the right of smokers to do as they please in their own homes; furthermore, just as the government doesn't allow recipients of WIC to purchase soda and Doritos, it shouldn't support a smoker's unhealthy lifestyle by subsidizing a place where he can light up. On the other hand are those who argue that everyone has the liberty to do what he likes in his own residence, and that a smoking ban in public housing would "affect only the poorest persons."

The problem here is not smoking. The problem here is public ownership of housing. As long as "the public" owns a housing development, who is to decide what can be done in that development? The taxpayers who approve of smoking bans or the taxpayers who don't?

In a free market, landlords could decide whether to offer their buildings with a smoking ban or without. Some landlords, hoping to attract nonsmoking renters who don't want even the slightest trace of smoke in their living quarters, wanting to benefit from lower fire insurance rates, or wanting to save on cleaning costs, might ban smoking. Others who hope to make more money by charging higher rents to smokers, or who simply don't want to be encumbered with the burden of enforcing smoking bans, could adopt a permissive policy. And then tenants could choose to live in a home with a smoking policy they like.