To the Editor:
Re “Smoking Ban Hits Home. Truly” (Belmont Journal, front page, Jan. 27):
In a not surprising but troubling move, some cities, like Belmont, Calif., have prohibited individuals from smoking in their own apartments. The justification, as always, is that sidestream smoke is a threat to the health of innocent nonsmokers.
There are good scientific and public health reasons for restricting smoking in closed public spaces. But when such restrictions are extended to beaches, parks, sidewalks and now to the homes of smokers, the argument that third-party harms must be prevented becomes increasingly untenable.
To the extent that such restrictions are justifiable in the name of public health, they entail the warrant for imposing limits designed to make it more difficult to smoke in order to protect smokers from themselves and the consequences of their own behaviors.
Such paternalistic measures are not foreign to our communities—think of seatbelts and motorcycle helmet laws. But if we are to impose restrictions on smoking in the home, let’s not rely on the smokescreen of threats to the well-being of nonsmokers. Let us debate the issue of smoking restrictions on their own merits.
Ronald Bayer
New York, Jan. 27, 2009
The writer is co-director of the Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health, Columbia University.
Note from KBJ: This case has nothing to do with paternalism. It falls under the harm principle. If you want to smoke in your home, buy or rent a house.
