This coming week is National Non-Smoking Week. Unfortunately, one of the great silent ironies of (non-pandemic) life in Vancouver and other Canadian cities today is that many of us can usually get up, take smoke-free transit to our smoke-free workplaces, afterwards eat dinner in a smoke-free restaurant.

In British Columbia, as elsewhere in the world, we have become increasingly protected against the dangers and nuisance of secondhand smoke in many settings, including at work and in public. Ironically, for those of us living in multi-unit dwellings, be it as renters or owners, one setting in which there remains virtually no protection is where we spend the most time—in our homes. In 1964 Surgeon General Luther Terry made clear the immense dangers of smoking, yet two genera