The New York State Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services today proposed new regulations that, if ultimately promulgated, would require participating programs to ban smoking in their programs. Currently, these programs only focus on treatment for alcohol or substance abuse.
In proposing the new regulations, OASAS took the position that the programs' current focus on alcohol or substance abuse addiction would not be hampered by the new mandates to ban tobacco use. OASAS will now accept comments from the programs and the public before adopting the regulations.
The proposed regulations would be yet another layer of mandates on the programs with respect to smoking. Both New York State and New York City currently have in place laws that banned smoking in restaurants and other public places. The authorities had previously taken the position that these laws applied to substance and alcohol treatment programs, though I had successfully argued on behalf of a client that these programs should be exempt from general anti-smoking regulations.
The full-text of the proposed regulations can be found at:
http://www.oasas.state.ny.us/tobacco/providers/reg856.cfm
If you have any questions regarding the proposed regulations, please feel free to contact us.