Last week, the commissioners on the Cambridge Housing Authority voted 3-1 to ban smoking in public housing buildings, forcing low-income residents to leave the privacy of their own homes before they light up. Public housing buildings are owned by the government, and the government—and that means taxpayers—has the right to make the right to live in public housing conditional upon certain stipulations. That said, this is a serious infringement on the liberty of those who rely on taxpayer assistance for housing. The fact that the ban applies to those from low-income backgrounds makes the new regulation even less tenable, as the Cambridge Housing Authority unfairly makes it such that the prohibition of smoking in one’s own abode only applies to those without the means to independently purchase their own house or apartment.

We believe that individuals have a right over their own bodies, and an outright ban of smoking—other than a Pigovian tax for public health reasons—threatens the relationship between a government and the citizens whose rights it was elected to protect. It becomes especially difficult to support this restriction when all the facts are considered. Many tenants in public housing are elderly, implying that the government has taken the measure that robs these residents of a right they have enjoyed their entire lives.

Certainly, smoking—especially in a densely populated urban area—creates public health concerns, and it is understandable that the Cambridge Housing Authority wishes to establish better living conditions for those who make the conscious decision not to smoke. Yet, as instituted, the ban on smoking in public housing strikes as a simple case of tyranny of the majority.

The Cambridge Housing Authority should instead set up designated non-smoking housing, instead of forcing those who do smoke to leave the confines of their home for the solace of a cigarette.

Those whose circumstances force them to live in low-income housing should be neither punished nor shamed, and it is hard to imagine this restriction acting as anything but a repetitious indication that others have control over such a fundamental aspect of their lives. Everyone has the right to feel at home in his place of residence. This ban threatens that right and reminds those living in public housing that their liberty is in jeopardy on all fronts. Regardless of lung cancer rates, such a menace does not a healthy community make.