Environment roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Police and community roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Medical roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

P.S.: “Old enough to be executed, but not to have a final smoke. California logic.” [Scott Greenfield on Twitter]

California raises smoking age to 21 is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“In many respects,” writes [Bernard] Turnock, “it is more reasonable to view public health as a movement than as a profession.” “Public health,” the Encyclopedia of Philosophy tells us, “is focused on regulation and public policy.” Public health experts claim a jurisdiction that covers anything related to welfare, little of which consists of genuine public goods. The basic thrust of public health is to remove decisions from the domain of individual choice. For example, public health experts believe that driving is a privilege, not a right, and probably extend this characterization to any activity that they don’t like or for which they think they would easily qualify (like parenting rights).

Slippery slopes mar the whole history of public health…if one wishes softer examples, from the treatment of the insane to Prohibition, to the current harassment of smokers, and to the partial nationalization of “public” places. Despite some reversals, the slope is as slippery as it ever was.

Related, cruel but predictable: HUD plans nationwide ban on letting public housing tenants smoke in their own units [Washington Post]

“Despised lifestyles are now identified as noncontagious epidemics” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“De Blasio continues crusade against smoking at home” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“NYC Council Bans Public Vaping…” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Secondhand smoke: study unable to find lung cancer link is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“It doesn’t matter if it’s owner-occupied or renter-occupied. We didn’t want to discriminate. The distinguishing feature is the shared wall.” As justification for the rule, she cited studies showing that secondhand smoke seeped through ventilating ducts and walls, even through cracks [emphasis added — W.O.]. “It depends on a building’s construction,” she said, “but it does affect the unit next door, with the negative health impacts due to smoke.”

San Rafael is in affluent Marin County just north of San Francisco. Woodbury said there had been hardly any opposition to the ordinance: “We have a very low percentage of smokers in the county,” she said. On proposals in Berkeley, Calif. to ban some smoking in private homes, see this recent post.

P.S. With end-of-year donation time coming on, I won’t be writing any checks to groups like the American Lung Association that support this sort of thing. Plenty of deserving health and research charities do great work while being respectful of individual liberty and property rights.

San Rafael, Calif. passes own-home smoking ban is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

More: I’m quoted by Chronicle columnist Debra Saunders:

In deference to the secondhand smoke rationale, Arreguin suggests that the ban apply if a minor lives in the home, “a nonsmoking elder, 62 years of age or older is present” or any other “non-smoking lodger is present.”

Walter Olson of the libertarian Cato Institute compares the Berkeley nanny ordinance to secondhand smoke itself: “They are seeping under our doors now to get into places where they’re not wanted.”

He faults “ever more ambitious smoking bans” that rework the definition of private space. “Now they’re really just saying it doesn’t matter if you have the consent of everyone in the room.” Olson savored Arreguin’s suggestion that 63-year-olds cannot consent to being near a smoker.

Toward the domestic frontier is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system