Welfare smokers

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/12/08/is-it-fair-to-ban-public-housing-tenants-from-smoking?ref=opinion
DATED DECEMBER 8, 2016 12:04 PM

Is It Fair to Ban Public Housing Tenants From Smoking?

Overcoming My Misgivings, I Saw That It Would Save Lives
RITCHIE TORRES 9:19 AM

When I first heard about the Department of Housing and Urban Development's proposal for a smoking ban in public housing a few months ago, I recoiled in disgust. At a time when the New York City Housing Authority is sinking deeper and deeper into a state of disrepair, why, I thought to myself, would the federal government spend even a second on a small-bore smoking ban, knowing, as it surely must, that public housing is an endangered species with far more pressing needs.
At first it seemed like government intrusion on people's homes. But people's health matters much more.
It seemed, at first glance, to be a misplacement of priorities: Instead of improving federally funded homes overtaken by molded walls and leaking rooks, the absentee landlords turned paternalists in Washington thought it wiser to infantilize poor people with their nanny-state vision of smoke-free housing. ‎A product of public housing myself, I knew what public housing residents needed desperately was not a federal intrusion into their smoking habits but instead a federal investment in their homes, which have been plagued by decades of government neglect.

But then came a change of heart. The numbers revealing the human cost of tobacco were too sobering to be taken lightly. Once the initial gut reaction had receded, I thought deeply about and came to be persuaded by the public health justification for a smoking ban.

‎Claiming 12,000 lives every year in New York City alone, tobacco is the single greatest cause of preventable disease and death. According to the American Cancer Society, about a third of all cancer deaths are related to tobacco, and lung cancer, which is closely associated with smoking, is the deadliest of all cancers. Although accounting for only 10.8 percent of cancer cases, lung cancer makes up 22.1 percent of cancer deaths. The sheer deadliness of tobacco would seem to suggest smoking amounts to little more than suicide committed in slow motion.
The need for tobacco control aside, I am under no illusion that the New York City Housing Authority, which confronts a growing capital need of $17 billion and counting, has either the wherewithal or the will to enforce a smoking ban. But the mere presence of a ban, even if lightly enforced, could have an impact: Public housing would likely have fewer smokers with a ban in place than it would in the absence of one, and fewer smokers would mean more people with longer and better lives. If lengthening and improving lives is not a worthwhile cause, then I am not sure what is.
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Smoking Is Awful, but So Is Invading People’s Privacy
TONY MARCANO 9:20 AM

I hate smoking. Among all the terrible things we do to our bodies — injecting narcotics, ingesting toxic pills and alcohol, consuming too much sugar and salt — there’s little worse than sucking poison into your lungs.
It would follow, then, that I would approve of the coming ban on smoking in public housing announced by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. But I don’t. I can’t reconcile a government ban on a legal product, even noxious tobacco, in the privacy of one’s own home.
The government shouldn't set sanctions against addiction that target low-income people.
That’s a difficult admission for me. I spent the first 20 years of my life as an asthmatic whose parents smoked in a cramped apartment in the James Monroe Houses in the Bronx. My father, who inhaled at least three packs a day, died of heart disease in his mid-40s.
So no surprise that I’m okay with vigorous campaigns to discourage smoking. Those graphic ads with images of jaws eaten away by cancer or smokers breathing through tracheostomy tubes? All for them. Heavy taxes on tobacco? Absolutely. Indeed, I support smoking bans in common areas, and H.U.D.’s plan to offer smoking-cessation aids and counseling to public housing residents.
But I draw the line at the threshold to their apartments, and I believe public housing residents will too. We had no shortage of scofflaws in the projects back in my day — more than a few ignored a ban on dogs — and I suspect plenty will literally blow smoke at this one.
Certainly, smoking bans can and do work. Legislative bodies have voted to impose them on entire cities, and state and federal health and safety laws effectively prohibit smoking in workplaces. Co-op boards and homeowners’ associations frequently vote to ban tobacco. As The Times article notes, “some 200,000 homes already come under smoking bans adopted voluntarily by hundreds of public housing agencies around the country.”
Voluntarily is the key word there. I would wholeheartedly back any smoking ban mandated by public housing residents either by direct vote or through legislation passed by accountable elected officials. I’m aware that a public comment period on the H.U.D. plan indicated support for the ban, but the purpose there should be to inform elected officials of community concerns. It should not sanction regulations that punish, rather than treat, addiction and target low-income people.
By all means, visit the homes of your neighbors, friends and families to warn them away from the scourge of smoking. But don’t let the government into their homes to do it for you.



http://www.ibtimes.com/price-cigarettes-how-much-does-pack-cost-each-us-state-map-1553445

The Price Of Cigarettes: How Much Does A Pack Cost In Each US State?

Why are cigarettes so expensive in New York City? They're so high that it's almost worth crossing state lines to buy the maximum allowance of cigarettes and bring them back.
Not only does New York State impose a tax of $4.35 on a pack of 20, the highest of any U.S. state, but when you add the local New York City tax of $1.60, you have the most expensive pack of smokes in the whole country.
According to The Awl’s annual cigarette price check, for which they call delis in each state and ask how much a pack of cigarettes costs, New York clocks in with the most expensive, at more than $14 a pack.





If you can afford to buy cigarettes at $14 per pack, you have no fucking business living off somebody else's dime in public housing.
Period - end of debate.

Yeah. Well, smoking is an addiction. I seriously doubt if anyone living in "public housing," can actually afford many smokes at that price.  In any case, your argument reminds me of people attacking food stamp recipients for their dietary choices.  

That said, renters don't have many rights in this country... certainly not the right to smoke in their apartments if the landlord doesn't allow it.

happy jack wrote:

Scorpion wrote:

Yeah. Well, smoking is an addiction.  

Yeah. Well, it’s an addiction that can be kicked.
I know that firsthand, so I have plenty of room to speak.

Yeah. Well good for you.  It's irrelevant, but good for you, jack.

happy jack wrote:

Anyone living in public housing should be putting whatever money they do have toward life’s necessities, not toward a deadly vice.

Yep. Won't argue that point. The fact is that no one should be putting money toward a deadly vice.

happy jack wrote:

Scorpion wrote:

In any case, your argument reminds me of people attacking food stamp recipients for their dietary choices.  

Which is precisely what I am not doing - the situations are wholly unrelated.
Yet, somehow, I am the one constantly being accused of straw man arguments.
Go figure.

I didn't say that they were related. That would indeed be a straw man argument.  

It's your focus on welfare recipients that is troubling.

happy jack wrote:

Incidentally, do you buy the whole ‘second-hand smoke will kill anyone it touches and we must run screaming from it’ theory?

Hell no.  Not unless the person being subjected to it has asthma or some other respiratory problem.  

Just curious... how many packs per day did you smoke?  I was a hard core smoker for many years... never though I'd be able to quit, but I switched over to vaping about 3 years ago, and it's amazing.