Bans on Smoking in Public Places - The PUSH for Smoke Free Housing

by Rose Marie Borutski
(Surrey, BC)

There is no evidence of a right to smoke outlined in case law, under Human Rights, or nuisance law, and criteria informing what constitutes addiction doesn't cover addiction to nicotine or marijuana.

With so much documentation available on the internet, including from Corporate Tobacco, that there is no right to smoke, I wonder why this notion continues to be used?

No reasonable person would continue with this line of thinking. We now know better.

The reason that the government funded the project for smoke-free housing in the way they did was because they knew there was no right to smoke, not even in your own "castle".

When I see someone smoking in public places, it's usually standing or sitting under the sign that says "No Smoking". Sometimes I say something like, "You are smoking under a No Smoking sign in a no smoking buffer zone. Have a little respect for yourself, if not for others."

Sometimes I say, "You are in contempt of a public no smoking area. You have such contempt for yourself."

Sometimes, when I get a smoker belligerent response, I say, Eureka, that's an example of contempt. Sometimes I say nothing, but take a picture. Sometimes, I say, "I know you are addicted, but don't you have any grace and manners to take it away from others."

I understand that when a smoker smokes in a public no smoking area, he does so not out of addiction, but out of contempt. He simply does not have the grace and manners to walk the extra few steps out of the way, and keep himself 30 feet from a non-smoker. Smoking in a no smoking public space, a common area, is an act of contempt, an act of violence.

It is tragic and pitiable. Mostly, smokers are militant; they are not polite. If they were polite, we would not be having the secondhand smoke problems that people experience.

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Visit Rosa Marie's blog "Canadians PUSH for Smoke Free Housing" where she writes about her support for a ban on smoking in public places and advocates for smoke free housing.