P.O. Box 1036
Brooklyn, New York 11234
Email: nycclash@nycclash.com
December 22, 2016
The Honorable Donald Trump
Presidential Transition
Office
721 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York 10022
New York, New York 10022
Dear Mr. President-Elect,
We are elated to have elected to our White
House two men who honor the rich traditions of our country and the fundamental
beliefs on which it was founded. Smaller
and less intrusive government, which both you and Vice President-Elect Pence clearly
value, is an ideal that not only applies to business and industry but to the
people. And so we hope that the burdens
you’ve both promised to lift off of industry in pursuit of economic freedom will
be lifted off of the people as well in pursuit of personal freedom.
We ask that you rescind the final rule
“Smoke-Free Public Housing” that was imposed by the U.S. Housing and Urban
Development Department (HUD) and printed in the Federal Register on December 5,
2016 (Docket No. FR 5597-F-03). You
don’t have to have a favorable view of smoking to be against what New York’s Observer newspaper editors describe as
possibly “the most far-reaching, intrusive and over-reaching executive order of
the entire Obama administration.”1 Far-reaching because it assaults
people in the privacy of their own homes and over-reaching because it is
fraught with substantial constitutional questions.2
Imagine an elderly or disabled veteran
being told by a federal agency that he can't enjoy a cigar in his own home; that
he'd have to get dressed, somehow make it downstairs and then 25 feet further
(or more since the HUD rule provides latitude to each public housing authority
to extend it) into the freezing cold, torrid heat or drenching rain
without a bench to sit on. No, s/he
can’t go to the park because smoking is banned there too.
In 2013, President Obama honored the
nation's oldest veteran, Richard Overton, in front of thousands in D.C. on
Veteran’s Day.3 Obama told
the crowd, "His service on the battlefield was not always
matched by the respect that he deserved at home." Well, this veteran is also well known for his
love of his cigars – enjoying up to twelve of them a day. Mr. Overton is still with us at 110 years old.4
What “respect at home” are veterans like him receiving from President Obama and
Housing Secretary Julian Castro when they are being kicked out of their homes – either twelve times a day or for good if they
get evicted for non-compliance?
HUD’s callous disregard for the well-being
(in all other uninvited manner beside the personally invited legal choice to
smoke) of residents such as Mr. Overton dictates that this exercise cannot be
rationally said to be all about health.
If the person who wants to smoke falls down the stairs, catches
pneumonia or becomes depressed is the trade HUD is making then it’s clear the
only thing this rule is about is HUD’s complicity in Big Public Health’s singularly
obsessive social engineering experiment.
“Quit smoking” – at the point of their rule-making gun – is their answer
and the real motivation behind this rule. (Claiming smoking in one apartment
harms non-smokers in another apartment is their wholly unproved excuse.) They call it the “tobacco endgame.”5
I think others would call this means to an end the “liberty endgame”; whereby
to “denormalize” smoking they have had to denormalize civil liberty ideals.
This is not a “right to smoke” objection
as HUD and its rule supporters insist on characterizing any resistance. At
stake is the right of U.S. citizens to be left alone to engage in a legal
activity in the privacy of one’s own home – the last place left without a
smoking ban (otherwise this is also de facto Prohibition). There can be no end
to such incursion if one is allowed through. It was, in fact, Vice
President-Elect Pence who once said, “A government big enough to go after
smokers is big enough to go after you.”6
We have no objections to government and
health groups advising against smoking and offering stop-smoking assistance to
those who seek it. But when Congress and
states’ rights are side-stepped and a federal agency starts breaking down its
citizens’ own front doors to rip it out of their hands because they refuse the
advice let’s stop pretending the issue is about smoking instead of tyranny.
We the people beg you for relief. Please rescind this rule.
Sincerely,
Audrey
Silk
Founder
cc: The Honorable Mike Pence
Vice President-Elect
Dr. Ben Carson
HUD Secretary Nominee
The Honorable Tom Price
Congressman
HHS Secretary Nominee
________________________
1. Editorial. “The
Nanny State Shames Poor Smokers in Their Homes.” Observer. 12/7/16.
2. Audrey Silk / C.L.A.S.H. Comment on the Department
of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Proposed Rule: FR 5597-P-02
Instituting Smoke- Free Public Housing. ID: HUD-2015-0101-0528. 1/12/16
3. Lindy Royce-Bartlett. “Oldest World War II vet Richard Overton, 107, honored by President
Obama.” CNN. 11/11/13
4. Douglas Ernst. “Oldest
World War II veteran still chomping cigars at 110.” The Washington Times.
5/12/16
5. "Part of the
'tobacco endgame' is to further denormalize smoking, to the point that the next
generation of kids will not grow up seeing it as something adults do. This is a
hard argument to make when a kid smells smoke every time he walks into the
hallway of his building and sees groups of residents smoking on stoops. Smoking
bans have really helped to marginalize smoking behavior in other settings, like
airports, restaurants, hospitals and schools. Multiunit housing is
the next logical step."
Stanford University Freeman Spogli Institute, Center for
Health Policy / Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research News. “Is proposed ban on smoking in public
housing fair and just?” 11/16/15
6. Kim LaCapria. “That Makes No Pence.” Snopes. 11/11/16