BS - Smoking in cars with kids

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: goatfell
Date: 22 Feb 09 - 09:01 AM

I don't smoke but what I hate are these people that say that smoking is bad while they drive their big gas guzzling cars while pulloting the air and giving me and people like asthma, they don't mind adding to the global warming but smoke oh no you can't do that but you can drive around pullting and give people asthma

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: Bill D
Date: 21 Feb 09 - 05:35 PM

Until we come to terms with tobacco products, these debates will continue.

Imagine a country with NO cigarettes, and some guy discovers tobacco and what happens when it is cured & dried and rolled up in a piece of paper and set alight...and the smoke inhaled. Then he decides to market it. What do you suppose our modern Drug agencies would say after testing? They would never allow this stuff to be marketed.

Tobacco is still with us and needing all these awkward attempts at laws because 1)many of the regulators are smokers, 2)There is so much money involved in sales & taxes that banning tobacco would hurt the economy, and 3)No one wants to contemplate the panic and behavior of many of the addicts if deprived of their 'fix'.
Yes, it IS better today since smoking is banned in many public places, but I still sometimes get hit with a butt tossed from a car and we still get fires caused by careless smoking.

I think I'd be willing to take my chances with nervous, cranky folks who had their cigarettes taken away.
   What would I do when tobacco was grown secretly and smuggled...like pot? I really don't know...I just wish...

I, also, lived in a house...and rode cars...where my parents smoked, and *I* hated it. We were not rich, and I could do the math about what my parents could have bought with cigarette money.

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: Ed T
Date: 21 Feb 09 - 02:34 PM

There was a time we would worry about another problem:
Smoking in cars, making kids.

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: GUEST,Jim
Date: 21 Feb 09 - 01:07 PM

Here's a link to the Toronto Star article. Apparently I was mistaken about him being the second person charged.

http://www.thestar.com/GTA/Crime/article/588289

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: Joe Offer
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 05:00 PM

Let me repeat the original post, because I think it's been twisted and misunderstood in the course of the discussion:

Ontario has recently added another anti-smoking law. No one is allowed to smoke in a car if any of the passengers is under 16 years old. The second person to be ticketed for this was a smoking driver who had a fifteen year old smoker in his car. While the driver was being ticketed, the fifteen year old girl stepped out of the car and lit up a smoke. In Ontario it is legal for children to smoke; it's just not legal to give or sell cigarettes to anyone under 19 years. Does this mean that in a car carrying a passenger under 16, the passenger is allowed to smoke, but the driver isn't?

Assuming that Jim's description of the law is correct, it says that no one is allowed to smoke in the car if there are passengers under the age of 16 - so the 15-yr-old smoker is also not allowed to smoke in the car. If that's the way it's written, I think it's a good law. Yeah, there are possible absurdities, but it accomplishes its goal of keeping kids out of a smoky, closed environment.

Jim says it's legal for kids to smoke, but not for people to sell or give them tobacco products. I think that, too, is a good law. I don't know if I'd go so far as to use the same approach for alcohol, but maybe it might not be a bad idea. Kids are going to smoke and drink, one way or another - and maybe it's not worth spending money on chasing down kids who smoke and drink and calling them criminals. Maybe it's better to stop the problem at the supply end. If anything, I think teenager drinking and smoking should be punished with a reasonable fine and nothing more - but suppliers should be dealt with severely.

For decades, drug enforcement agencies in the U.S. have spent very little money on chasing down drug addicts - they focus their efforts on suppliers.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: Peace
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 04:34 PM

"Oh how some found their voices once the masses began to scream !"

Guest AR. I mean no offense, but here is my remark from post six on this thread:

"Second-hand smoke is NOT good for people, especially kids. I like the law.

I've been a smoker since I was nine with two years not smoking when I was in my forties. I'm now 61. That's 50 years. Smoking sucks, imo."

Fact is that in the past I have said words to this effect: If I come sit on a park bench beside you, and I decide to smoke, you have the right to ask me not to. If you come sit beside me and ask me not to smoke, I have the right to request you go find another bench. I have been in both situations. In the first instance the non-smoker is correct. In the second, the smoker is correct. We now know, medically, that smoking around others harms them. So it's reasonable and humane to smoke away from people. That's my view and y'ain't said anything to change my mind.

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: Becca72
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 04:31 PM

As mentioned in my post above, my information applies to my home state of Maine. "According to Title 22, section 1555-B, it is illegal to buy or possess tobacco products if one is under 18 years of age."

So in answer to your question of what I would charge the kid with my answer would be "illegal possession of tobacco products by a person under 18".

I realize Maine law differs from Ontario law that's why it was stated as my feelings on the matter.

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 03:14 PM

Becca72 said, in part:

in the situation above the officer should have been able to ticket the 15 year old (if it's illegal for children to buy them and illegal for adults to supply children with them how did they legally obtain the butts??

What charge would you bring against the kid?

I don't understand (at least from the excerpt of your post above) that it's illegal for the kid to have them. (S)he is prohibited from buying them, but I don't know that (s)he is prohibited from receiving them from others. Remember, the burden of proof is on the prosecution as to who provided the cigs to the kid, and under what circumstances. May have been another kid.

Adults are prohibited from providing them to kids, but we don't know that that's how the kid got the cigs. Even if from an adult, as far as I can tell that's not an offense of the kid. Who knows, maybe the kid stole them. And how would you prove that if the kid clammed up?

Charge the kid with smoking? The premising post of this thread says that the kid was within the permitted smoking age.

Charge the kid with smoking in a car where there's a kid, when "the kid" is himself/herself?   Awwww, c'mmmmon!

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: gnu
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 01:54 PM

New Brunswick, Canada...

Purchase age is 19 (19 is the age of majority here). Tobacco must be out of sight. Tobacco cannot be sold in a drug store. No smoking in any place of any business. No smoking within 15m of any exterior door or operable window of any place of business. Government makes a whack of money on every smoke.

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: Midchuck
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 01:52 PM

think the thread is really about the presumed rights of the state to define and regulate peoples private lives and how much interference are we prepared to accept.

I disagree. _Private_ lives aren't the point. If anyone attempted to outlaw smoking by a person, alone outdoors, with nobody else anywhere near; or alone in his own residence, I'd oppose it. The thread is about what people do to other people - especially children - by means of their second- or third-hand smoke. That's all it was supposed to be about.

P.

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: frogprince
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 01:28 PM

Make that "prosecuted".

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: frogprince
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 01:28 PM

To be blunt about my feelings as to the responsibility of the industry: It has become obvious that a substantial number of tobacco company executives, well aware of the deaths they were causing, made every effort to suppress or discredit the truth about smoking for decades.

Why shouldn't they be persecuted for premeditated murder?

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: Sleepy Rosie
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 01:17 PM

Ian Mather: "Aye, sleepy Rosie. You could say that any legislation that does anything other than ban tobacco is immoral."

Well, of course, you could say that. Though it's not what I would say exactly.

What I personally find immoral, is the subtle but clear apportioning of blame onto addicts who, IMO are victims of capitalist industry and state in collusion.

So, my own feelings are, I would prefer to see far less criminalisation of the behaviours of existing addicts, and far more practical measures taken to ensure that young people do not become addicted in the first place.

Shouldn't be too difficult to raise the legal age to purchase tobacco products to 21 or over (by which time most people won't be bothered enough to become addicted), or only sell them in restricted outlets where minors will have vastly reduced access.

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: Sleepy Rosie
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 01:01 PM

Ebbie: "Bannin creates other problems, nicht wahr?"

I only speak of "banning sale for profit", not of *taboo free* legal provision (at cost perhaps), where there is an already existant dependency.

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: Rasener
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 12:59 PM

>>I ask people if they mind if I smoke... in my own house and vehicle. I do not smoke, even in my own house or vehicle, if children are present.
<<

If only all smokers were like that.

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: Ebbie
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 12:54 PM

Bannin creates other problems, nicht wahr?

To this day - 31 years after quitting - I enjoy a fleeting cigarette smell, outdoors. With the emphasis on fleeting and on outdoors.

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: gnu
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 12:49 PM

Hmmmm.... my post above needs some clarification.

I ask people if they mind if I smoke... in my own house and vehicle. I do not smoke, even in my own house or vehicle, if children are present.

However, creating a law that imposes punishment on those who do is just wrong. Enclosed public places, yes... private places, no.

Why not just ban tobacco, alcohol... whatever, altogether? Simple solution, isn't it?

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: Sleepy Rosie
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 12:40 PM

Ebbie: "Frankly, I would like to see tobacco products offered only in the liquor stores, symbolic, if nothing else, that only adults are allowed to smoke."

Yes indeed, I ditto that.

Cease increasingly criminalising those already addicted. They are victims of a cultural, industrial, commercial and governmentally sanctioned behaviour, from which EVERYONE but they reap vast rewards!

Instead, just make it far, far less easy (even impossible for the young in particular, to become addicted in the first place.)

Me - I have no problem with the wholesale and outright *banning* of the *public sale for profit* of nicotene drugs - where those already addicted (usually from childhood lets not forget), could get their addicts needs satisfied by the state with zero stigma attatched...

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: GUEST,AR
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 12:36 PM

And a mother sitting at the kitchen table emptying a bottle of wine down her throat with a friend in charge of children is child neglect, but it happens. Anyone ever done it ?

---

AR, if you wish to have the privilege of posting here as a guest, please remember that we expect you to be on your best behavior. We had to delete one of your posts where you slipped into a rant against "pervs" in a discussion of smoking.
-Joe Offer, Forum Moderator-

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: frogprince
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 12:33 PM

Not that many years ago, the law couldn't touch parents if their toddler was clearly bruised from a beating with a heavy belt. It was their own business - their right to discipline their child as they saw fit. Tell me that smoking in an enclosed space with a small child is ultimately less harmful to the child.

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: Musket
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 12:31 PM

Aye, sleepy Rosie. You could say that any legislation that does anything other than ban tobacco is immoral.

Looking at The UK, (I know this started as an American story, sorry folks.)

35% of GP appointments are tobacco related, a third of NHS spend is tobacco related. (You may be in for a back injury, but your coronary heart problems and lung capacity make it awkward to operate, hence more expensive treatment, your general poorer health makes a longer hospital stay etc etc.)

We pass that legacy on to our children if we smoke around them...

I didn't watch my Dad smoke throughout my childhood. He stopped when I was 10, just in time to die of lung cancer when I was 12.

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 12:27 PM

Some say kids are over protected these days. Some say we were not so protected decades ago and we survived.

I am not certain about this, but hasn't tobacco become increasingly more addictive over the years because the industry added more nicotine. Also pretty sure changes in growing, drying, production processes have added more toxins to tobacco.

If we really want to reduce the exposure to poison, we can't stop at individual use of tobacco. Poison is in everything. Air fresheners, shampoo, deodorant, fabric softener, carpet, upholstery, MDF. It leeches from the plastic containers into drinks and food. There used to be flame retardant in baby clothes and childrens pajamas for fuck sake. Do they still do that in the US?   Humankind is constantly bombarded with toxins. And we are all getting sicker for it.

Ms. H....? Are you Ms. H....? You are under arrest because you permit your children to live in a poisoned house and ingest poisoned food and wear poisoned clothes.

Laws and sanctions need to be directed at the manufacturers of products that poison humans and the earth. But let's get real. That is not going to happen.

A woman was pulled in the UK last year for eating an apple whilst driving, apparently because she could be a danger to others. Was she actually driving dangersously while she ate that apple?

How much more a danger are flying embers? A law that prohibits smoking in a moving vehicle, based only on the safety issue it presents to the driver, other drivers, and nature, would be a better idea. This is a common sense solution which will happily benefit children (at least when they are in the car) without singling out smoking adults as child abusers.

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: Ebbie
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 12:26 PM

In Alaska, Sleepy Rosie, it is illegal for a teen to smoke before age 19. If in the UK the age is 15, work on that.

In Juneau, maybe in all Alaska, all alcohol-content beverages are in the liquor store- you won't find any in the groceries. Frankly, I would like to see tobacco products offered only in the liquor stores, symbolic, if nothing else, that only adults are allowed to smoke.

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: Sleepy Rosie
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 12:08 PM

The thing that angers me most strongly in the case described by *this thread* in particular, is that it is apparantly QUITE OK for a 15 yr. old to easily and legally become a nicotene (ie: state tax supporting) addict, but (Oh dear!) if you happen to be an addict smoking *near* a fifteen year old, all of a sudden it's a criminal offence!

So the STATE can reap REVENUE from ADDICTED MINORS, while other adults are not legally entitled to smoke *near* them? Something up with this much?

I find such hypocrytical legislation, which comfortably and easily lumps the burden of blame *away from* the promoters (cigarette manafacturers/advertisers) and beneficiaries (both industry and state make a lot of money out of nicotene addicts) of addiction, to the addicts themselves, to be highly cynical, hypocritical, and even immoral.

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: Ebbie
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 12:00 PM

One of the proudest achievements of my life is that I quit smoking.

One of the greatest shames of my life is that I smoked - in the car. In the house. In the middle of the night. The first thing in the morning. At the table. - all the years that my daughter was home.

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: Musket
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 11:53 AM

Sleepy Rosie Notes that it is hypocritical to criminalise smokers whilst extracting duty from sale of cigarettes.

Governments do not always get it right. Smokers have a vote too. Just because somebody has a drug problem and is in denial doesn't make it right.

If society actually stopped and considered listened to the bare facts regarding health, discomfort of others and environmental considerations, smoking would be up there with other toxic barbiturates, and smokers would perhaps realise how anti social their addiction is to others.

Democracy is the best type of government available, but until the vast majority do not contain smokers and their apologists, governments are going to carry doing their wire dance. Listen to their health experts one day and the treasury the next.

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 11:42 AM

I think the thread is really about the presumed rights of the state to define and regulate peoples private lives and how much interference are we prepared to accept.

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 11:40 AM

from an 'Emergency Room' blog:

'Interesting statistics on carbon monoxide concentrations at Wikipedia. The average baseline level of carbon monoxide in homes is 0.5 to 5 ppm (parts per million). Average level near a gas stove is 5 to 15 ppm. Average level of carbon monoxide in a chimney with a wood fire going is 5000 ppm. Average level in car exhaust is 7000 ppm. The level of carbon monoxide in undiluted cigarette smoke is …

30,000 PPM!

Calling all those smokers out there a bunch of "chimneys" is an understatement.'
=========
Anybody who has to smoke in a car should set the fan on exhaust, that's for sure. But it's better not to smoke, if only because the CO can affect thinking ability and reaction time.

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: Rasener
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 11:14 AM

From what I can see, this thread is about smokimg and in particular, whilst children are in the car.

So can we stick to the smoking issue.
If somebody wants to start a thread on drinking or driving cars,do it.

The big issue here is, should children be exposed to smokers in a confined area.

My answer is NO

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: Sleepy Rosie
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 10:59 AM

My initial 'contributions' to this thread were somewhat 'kneejerk'. I am a non-smoker, and have been all my life. I grew up around smokers (not liking it all that much it must be said), and also I have many friends who smoke.

I see a profound hypocricy and inconsistancy - and even *immoral* one, in the increasing *criminalisation of smokers*, while the STATE continues to extract REVENUE from these physical addicts, who pay with their lives for adopting habits which our youth remain LEGALLY endorsed to do, at disgustingly early ages!

Who pays in blood?
Who reaps in revenue?
And yet who remains the criminal?

Of course children should be protected from the nicotine addiction and related diseases. But the increasing *criminalisation* of existing addicts, is IMO, a complete and total bullshit with a capital *B*.
My apologies to those I offend.

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: Musket
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 10:50 AM

About time we started taking child abuse seriously here in The UK too.

It is illegal to smoke in a pub, which is sensible to me, but to be fair people who find the smell repulsive can move away from it. (Of course, why should they? But at least they physically can.)

What chance does a child have for moving themselves from the smoke? In the home? In the car? In their cot....

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: GUEST,AR
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 10:46 AM

Good point Donuel, but as most of the above who moan, drive cars (ever wonder how Friends of the Earth arrive at demo's) and enjoy their little whisky of glass or two of wine of an evening they don't want their lifestyle crapped on by us,they are just happy to get the boot into the smoker. It's a case of do as I say, not do as I do. I'm alright Jack.

If they care so much about their kids maybe the wouldn't set by example. Just how many leave drinks cupboards unlocked or opened bottles of wine in the fridge.

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 10:42 AM

Lets punish the silent but deadly farters while we are at it.

I suppose we could grandfather in Spaw.

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 10:39 AM

I think there are two things that people are getting very weary of...the nannie state and self righteousness. I am not an advocate of smoking, however, I detest the sanctimonious hypocrisy of both gevernments and individuls regarding smoking. Smokers are just and easy target..unlike cars, big industries, and government sanctioned pollution who do a great deal more damage.

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 10:19 AM

We need to punish and fine every driver whose car emits fumes.

In a recent experiment where children were placed in a small room with a running Ford Explorer and another group of kids were exposed to a smoker in a room of indentical proportions, it was found that all the children in the room with the SUV were dead within 45 minutes while in the room of children with the smoker ... all the children survived!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: GUEST,AR
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 09:10 AM

Oh how some found their voices once the masses began to scream !

Go tell that story above to a lady raising three kids after her husband and daughter were wiped out by someone who was only enjoying a few drinks and felt fit to drink. Smoking isn't a problem in her life anymore.

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: alanabit
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 09:02 AM

Quite right Peter. The issue is not one of whether smokers have the right to poison themselves. It is one of whether they have the "right" to force others to do likewise.

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: Midchuck
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 08:52 AM

Smoking and drinking alcohol are not directly comparable, because there is no _direct_ harm to anyone but the drinker, from alcohol. And in fact, a lot of the medical evidence indicates that if it's held to one or two a day, alcohol consumption at that level does more good than harm.

The problem is, of course, that some people can drink their one or two a day and stop, and others can't. And when you go beyond that, you not only harm your own body, you start driving drunk and killing others, or you beat up your wife/girl friend/husband/boy friend/whatever, and you in general become a slob.

A truly rational alcohol law would neither impose prohibition, nor let everyone have as much as they wanted, but put everyone on a fixed ration - say two drinks a day - maybe only one for women, as the physiology people say they are more sensitive then men. Obviously, this isn't going to happen in the near future - but neither is a new prohibition.

Smoking tobacco starts messing the people around you up, from the first puff. It isn't a personal liberty issue. One of the key points of Libertarianism is that a civilized person, in the context of a civilized society, does not _initiate_ the use of violence (except in a game or training session, or formal duel, entered into by mutual consent and with agreed rules). If punching me in the nose is initiating violence, how can blowing poison in my face not be?

Peter

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 08:33 AM

A law like this back in 1949 through the '60s would have prevented a lot of my carsickness as a child.

Both of my parents smoked, usually with the car windows closed. I got carsick almost EVERY time I rode along with them.    They also smoked at home, of course. I HATED it. It was worse when relatives visited. It seemed as if everyone smoked.

But a little kid can't complain.

To this day (I'm going to be 60 in June) I have never so much as put my lips on a cigarette or other form of tobacco. I loathe the habit. I find the smell nauseating.

Emphasema killed my dad after 20 years of not having enough breath to walk across the living room. He'd been a professional musician -- clarinet and sax in dance bands -- as well as a fine singer. Needless to say, he lacked the breath for any of that.

My mother apologized to me (and I think to my brother and sister) about a dozen years ago for smoking in the car in particular, but also for rearing us in such a toxic environment.

I have considerably fewer voice problems since New Hampshire went smoke free in public places and I don't have to sing in a cigarette smoke-filled pub.

Just my two cents worth.

Linn

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: GUEST,AR
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 08:11 AM

Let's not forget alcohol. Must seem to defend it and I am unaware of anyone wrecking a home or beating up a woman after smoking 20 cigarettes. Each weekend on our streets we see property, passing cars and lives smashed up by booze filled thugs "out enjoying a drink".

Yes of course you moan about smokers and press for laws to push them into corners, while drinkers enjoy the freedom to fill A&E units, leave kids without food and clothes and bring misery to homes.

Maybe you ignore this problem because you enjoy a drink yourself and after all, there is no harm in having a little drink to relax, look closer to home before you bark at the lifestyles of others.

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: GUEST,ibo
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 07:33 AM

Nobody should smoke next to anyone fullstop.I have a disease that may well have been caused by benzene,found in passive smoke.I have been performing in smokey atmospheres for 33 years and have never smoked in my life.It was shown that my lungs appered to be damaged as if i smoked.I now suffer from a rare form of leukemia that is being monitored and stabilised,thanks to our fantastic british health service.I have not suffered a major chest problem since the smoking ban came in,and i am now enjoying my performances.                                                             If you smoke near children,you are doing them serious harm,child abuse.All smokers are fools,and to deny this is ridiculous.I WONDER HOW MANY PEOPLE NEVER LIVED TO ENJOY THIS DISCUSSION.

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: Rasener
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 06:55 AM

IMHO, parents who smoke in rooms or cars with their kids in have no respect for them and sadly do not care about their childrens future health as well as addiction to the weed.

I agree with the law.

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: GUEST,AR
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 05:25 AM

My mom and dad smoked in our car and as a child I accepted it. As a non smoker myself I still respect peoples freedom of choice. There was a lot of seedeaters who called out for the smoking ban in public houses a few years ago. I somehow doubt publicans favour the ban today considering 7 public houses a day close in Britain.

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 04:58 AM

I'm the product of smoking parents, so even though I've never smoked a cigarette myself, I'm paying the price 30 years later with high level of chest infections, pleurisy and at one point, suspected asthma.

I have no problem with people smoking in their homes, their cars or on the street but as soon as that smoke becomes trapped in an enclosed space, it's a problem. Then it's not just yourself who gets the benefit, but everyone. If you're in a room full of smokers, then fine, no problem... but children and particularly babies shouldn't be subjected to passive smoking.

In vehicles, the air venting system doesn't always take air and smoke out of the car, but pumps it back in and round... open windows can blow smoke and embers into the back of the car... dropped cigarettes can cause accidents and burns... the act of lighting a cigarette in the car takes both your hand off the wheel and your eye off the road (who wants to wave a cigarette lighter that close to their nose?!) - I once drove regularly with a guy who thought it perfectly legitimate and safe to light a cigarette, using both hands, whilst steering with his knees at 70mph on motorways. People take stupid enough risks as it is, one less could save their lives.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: alanabit
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 04:29 AM

I recall the torture of having to inhale my parents' cigarette smoke in the car as a child. If we have laws forbidding children to smoke, how can we actually allow legal protection to adults who force them to smoke? This new law is long overdue and I hope it is introduced and enforced everywhere before long. Why should anyone have a legal right to force children so inhale smoke?

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 03:53 AM

I agree that smoking should be banned in enclosed places, especially where children are present. I know there is no way to enforce this in people's homes, unless perhaps if a child suffers from life threatening respiratory condition and has been placed on social services register to protect him/her from dimwit parents. I imagine there are devices that could be fitted to houses that emit alarm if cigarette smoke is present.

I also think no one should smoke while driving or riding, regardless who is in the car. It is too dangerous on so many levels. As CarolC described, flying embers can and do settle anywhere inside or outside of the vehicle with disasterous effect.

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 08:08 PM

I used to smoke - but I'd never dream of smoking while I was driving, any more than trying to play a harmonica.

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: Janie
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 07:57 PM

What olddude said.

I remember with amazement that through the early '80's I sat at my desk at work and smoked, that I routinely smoked in public places like restaurants and bars, and in my houses and apartments. There were even classes in college where the professors allowed smoking. Today, the idea is unthinkable to me.

Times have changed, and for the better. This is a good law in spite, as Joe noted, the occasional absurdity that may occur.

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 07:48 PM

Smoking while you are driving is bloody stupid in any case. Rather the same as using a mobile phone - you haven't got the full use of both hands. And there's always the risk of a lighted cigarette falling into the driver's lap, which doesn't make for safe driving.

Subject: RE: BS - Smoking in cars with kids
From: olddude
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 07:35 PM

I hate the fact I smoke, I never did around my kids, always outside
killing myself is one thing, hurting others is something else