HUD to ban smoking in all federally subsidized public housing (Baltimore Sun)

Thursday Dec 1st, 2016

Smoking is to be prohibited in federally subsidized public housing nationwide as soon as early next year under a rule announced Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The rule, which was proposed by the agency last year, bans lit tobacco products such as cigarettes, cigars and pipes in all indoor areas — even inside people's apartments — and within 25 feet of all buildings.

The agency is giving local public housing agencies 18 months to implement the policy.

The rule would bring more than 940,000 public housing units in line with the more than 228,000 across the country that have already gone smoke-free under a voluntary HUD policy or local initiatives. The ban does not apply to electronic cigarettes or smokeless alternatives such as snuff or chewing tobacco.

The prohibition is to be written into residents' leases. Repeated violations could lead to eviction.

Read the entire story.

 

Related Stories

Lead poisoning cases fell 19 percent in Baltimore last year, even as more children tested for exposure (Baltimore Sun)

The number of Baltimore children with lead poisoning fell 19 percent in 2017, even as more children were tested for exposure to the powerful neurotoxin.

Statewide, the number of Maryland children found to have elevated levels of lead in their blood held steady even as the number of children tested increased by 10 percent, according to a Maryland Department of the Environment report released Tuesday.

Read the entire story.

Azar Unveils Plan to Help Pregnant Patients Quit Opioids (MedPage Today)

States will get help from the federal government integrating services for pregnant and postpartum Medicaid patients with opioid use disorder under a pilot program announced Tuesday by Health and Hu

Trump declared an emergency over opioids. A new report finds it led to very little. (Vox)

To much fanfare last year, President Donald Trump ordered his administration to declare a public health emergency over the opioid epidemic. “As Americans, we cannot allow this to continue,” Trump said at the time. “It is time to liberate our communities from this scourge of drug addiction.”

When I’ve asked experts about these approaches, it’s not that any of them are bad. It’s that they fall short. For instance, Leana Wen, the former health commissioner of Baltimore (and soon-to-be president of Planned Parenthood), said that the Support for Patients and Communities Act “is simply tinkering around the edges.”

Read the entire story.

Visit the Newsroom