Mike wrote:
"If it's not a health hazard in bars, then it's not a health hazard in cars, and if anything, the degree of government intrusion inherent in regulating smoking in cars is greater than that inherent in regulating smoking in bars."
Air sampling measurements in cars where smoking occurs have found inhalable particulate levels as high as 2,000 ug/m3 and have consistently been higher than 1,000 ug/m3, which is much higher than the typical levels in bars (even though levels in bars are far greater than levels the EPA allows in outdoor air.
Also, children have been found to be at greater risk than are adults for various secondhand smoke attributed illnesses.
Thus, from a public health perspective, it actually makes far more sense to protect children (who are at greatest risk) from tobacco smoke in cars (where the smoke concentrations are greatest) than it does to protect adults in bars.
But smokefree policies and laws to protect children in cars and adults in bars from tobacco smoke pollution are sound public health measures.
In addition to Arkansas, Puerto Rico recently enacted a law prohibiting
smoking in cars with children present.
1000 kids a year die in car accidents. Children in cars are also exposed to excessive toxic car exhaust on crowded roads. We should ban children from cars as it is a real "potential threat" to their life.
Oh wait a minute. 1900 a year die in home accidents. The home is a "potential threat" too.
The solution must be to confiscate them all at birth and put them in a bubble. That'll keep them safe!
Easiest to repeat my March 27th post:
How soon until people like Bill propose that ALL children be taken away from ALL parents and sent to state run camps -- where they'll receive the "proper" protection -- until they are of age?
Or how soon until we're back to the medical practices of the '40s (?) where any woman who refuses to give up smoking and can bear children will be forced to be sterilized because she can't be trusted not to "expose" any children she might have to her smoke and also setting a bad example?
Betcha Bill's eyes would glaze over if asked to explain "Give me liberty or give me death." (or he'd once again cite the policies of Communist China to back up his views).
"But smokefree policies and laws to protect children in cars and adults in bars from tobacco smoke pollution are sound public health measures."
Looks like SHS in cars is the most important of all health hazards in cars for children? Parents driving their children through polluted cities? Living in a city? Taking the school bus? Camp fires and BBQs?
Epidemiologic studies over the last 40 years suggest rather consistently that general ambient air pollution, chieþy due to the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels, may be responsible for increased rates of lung cancer. This evidence derives from studies of lung cancer trends, studies of occupational groups, comparisons of urban and rural populations, and case-control and cohort studies using diverse exposure metrics.
http://www.ehponline.org/docs/19.../cohen-
abs.html
The group of bus drivers studied here has previously been examined for aromatic DNA adducts in peripheral mononuclear cells; the results showed a clear exposure, with a 15-fold increase in the level of DNA adducts in comparison with a rural control group (14).
http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/cgi...nt/full/8/4/
303
Particulate matter less than 10µm (PM10) from fossil fuel combustion is associated with an increased prevalence of respiratory symptoms in children and adolescents.
Exposure to primary PM10 was associated with the prevalence of cough without a cold in both 1998 and 2001, with adjusted ORs of 1.21 (1.07 to 1.38 ) and 1.56 (1.32 to 1.84) respectively. For night time cough the ORs were 1.06 (0.94 to 1.19) and 1.25 (1.06 to 1.47), and for current wheeze 0.99 (0.88 to 1.12) and 1.28 (1.04 to 1.58 ), respectively. There was also an association between primary PM10 and new onset symptoms. The ORs for incident symptoms were 1.62 (1.31 to 2.00) for cough without a cold and 1.42 (1.02 to 1.97) for wheeze.
http://thorax.bmjjournals.com/cg...stract/61/3/
216
-> How does that compare to the significant RR of 0.78 for lung cancer in children exposed to SHS (WHO/IARC 1998 )?
Significant increases across the cities were observed for hospital admissions in children for pneumonia and acute bronchitis (0, 1–4 years), respiratory disease (0, 1–4, 5–14 years), and asthma (5–14 years). These increases were found for particulate matter with a diameter less than 2.5 µm (PM2.5) and less than 10 µm (PM10), nephelometry, NO2, and SO2. The largest association found was a 6.0% increase in asthma admissions (5–14 years) in relation to a 5.1-ppb increase in 24-hour NO2.
Conclusions: This study found strong and consistent associations between outdoor air pollution and short-term increases in childhood hospital admissions. A number of different pollutants showed significant associations, and these were distinct from any temperature (warm or cool) effects.
http://thorax.bmjjournals.com/cg...stract/61/3/
216
As Many of us have pointed out, those generations exposed as children to tobacco smoke in the family car, the home, and even the doctor's waiting rooms have far lower rates of asthma than the generation who have grown up unexposed.
Antismokers and grandstanding politicians ban smoking in cars to vent their self-righteous spleen and bully young mothers who smoke.
Has anybody heard of a window ? How about air conditioning ? and what about your car being a soft-top ? Knee jerk reactions to a problem ? How many parents smoke -out their children in cars.is it happening everywhere? constantly?Common sense is obviously something that smokers do not possess,according to these rabids,but i bet they can't provide any figures or data to substantiate this ridiculous concept.Drink,take drugs and drive but no smoking.It is already been proven that smoking whilst driving has no effect on accident data so the learned thinkers of the rabid anti smokers have come up with this .Next stop is banning smoking if you have an octagenarian passenger who may be more liable to peg out if they whiff tobacco smoke.ETS is not proven,contrary to belief and so to get onto the first rung they will use children.Legislation to protect kids,parents just aren't good enough.
margaret-smoker wrote:
"Children in cars are also exposed to excessive toxic car exhaust on crowded roads."
Levels of PM 2.5 particulates in a car driving on Chicago's Lower Wacker Drive during heavy rush hour traffic were measured at 60ug/m3.
http://www.tobaccofreeair.com/do...0Oct%
202005.pdf
While auto exhaust and tobacco smoke pollution contain different chemical constituents, inhaling 1,000ug/m3 - 2,000ug/m3 of particulates is far more hazardous than inhaling 60ug/m3.
"Air sampling measurements in cars where smoking occurs have found inhalable particulate levels as high as 2,000 ug/m3 "
Bill, where do these PMs come from? Not from the outside air?
Funny Bill, you provide a reference for your car exhaust number but not your ETS in cars one. Hiding something?
If we take a 20 minute ride in my van and you hold your little meter in the back seat where my kids sit and I smoke a cigarette with the window open going while driving 40 mph what will your little meter read?
Even if it is 1000ug/m3, what horrible event (that hasn't happened yet) will befall my children? Will they drop dead of a heart attack 5 minutes after I light up? Catch a cold next winter? Nothing? (my observation)
I have to wonder if Mr. Bill is trying to compare a time weighted average against a transient spike. An honest person would easily see the fallacy of such a comparision.
Since he likes to hold up the EPA standards, I wonder if he also knows the minimum monitoring distance from a source, and what the period of time this is averaged over, as proscribed by the standard.
If one was to place a monitoring probe 36 inches from a tail pipe, the reading would greatly exceed 2000ug/m3, however he seems to have no problem making a comparison to a car with the windows up, and no outside air exchange.
Likewise, in studying his charts from the TCFK sponsored indoor air monitoring study, we see very large spikes, which indicate these aren't taken from a non-smoking section, and by the size of the spikes and how quickly they disipate, indicates they were taken in very, very close proximity to someone smoking.
Of course we can trust this type of individual to not "stack" the deck, right?
"Levels of PM 2.5 particulates in a car driving on Chicago's Lower Wacker Drive during heavy rush hour traffic were measured at 60ug/m3. .... While auto exhaust and tobacco smoke pollution contain different chemical constituents, inhaling 1,000ug/m3 - 2,000ug/m3 of particulates...
http://www.tobaccofreeair.com/do...0Oct% 202005.pdf"
Bill, now show us where you got the 1'000-2000ug/m3 form for the inside of a car?
"Quantitative proportions of C2-C8 alkenes, alkynes, alkanes and arenes were determined for indoor smoky air and for air inside a private car. Samples were taken on adsorbent cartridges and analyzed by gas chromatography on an aluminum oxide column. The proportions of more than twenty reported alkenes, alkadienes and alkynes were demonstrated to be very similar in a smoky room and in sidestream cigarette smoke. Isoprene, ethene and propene are major components. Urban air polluted by petrol-fuelled vehicles differs mainly by having much lower proportions of isoprene and much higher proportions of petrol alkanes and alkylbenzenes. The total concentration of C2-C8 hydrocarbons was found to be similar in a smoky room and in a car in urban traffic."
http://www.forces.org/evidence/f...files/
suede.htm
Bill included a link to:
http://www.tobaccofreeair.com/do...0Oct%
202005.pdf
where at the bottom of page 7 you can read:
"and another study reported a 40% reduction in acute myocardial infarctions in patients admitted to a regional hospital during the 6 months that a local smoke-free ordinance was in effectxiv."
Another one to include in the list of fallacious claims!
This prohibition is not about protecting anybody. It's about breaching the privacy border. Makes no difference where the breach occurs, once you axe your way in, you're in.
This is about 'tobacco control', remember? "The vision of tobacco control is the elimination of tobacco from a society". No matter if the evil that it takes to do it outdoes the tobacco daemon. The end justifies the means.
The witch hunt continues....
benpal inquired:
"Bill, where do these PMs come from?"
The combustion of cigarettes inside a car.
benpal then asked:
"Bill, now show us where you got the 1'000-2000ug/m3 form for the inside of a car?"
Those air sampling measurements were in the EPA Report and the 1986 Surgeon General's Report.
Those air sampling measurements were in the EPA Report and the 1986 Surgeon General's Report.
I take it from Bill's comments that he would therefore support banning smoking in homes with children.
Bill wrote:
"Those air sampling measurements were in the EPA Report and the 1986 Surgeon General's Report."
Maybe the SG's report, but I couldn't find it in the EPA's report.
There was testing for tobacco-specific N-nitrosamines and nicotine, with windows partially open, but going by the flow rate of air the car was not moving and was inhabited by a very heavy smoker (4 cigarettes/hour for 3.3 hours).
It would be nice if smokers would not smoke around children period so that these laws would nor be necessary.
The problem is with cars is that it is a very small space and the concentration can escalate quickly.
Where comes down on this issue depends on at what stage you believe the state should step in if a child is being absused.
Should parents be able to punish with a belt? When a child's health begins to suffer from corporal punishment or other actions should the state step in?
One issue that arises is when parents will not permit the best medical care when a child's health/life is in danger.
"I take it from Bill's comments that he would therefore support banning smoking in homes with children."
The answer's obvious. Of course he-- not only would-- but does.
And as Soren says, this WILL be the next step, or the next step they try, under the logic you yourself present --if it's bad in cars (and we've already banned it there) then it's obviously worse in homes (and only logical we ban it THERE.) And this is, and always has been, part of the Master Plan. And after it's banned For the Children, they'll try it for the Elderly, and then for the cats and dogs, and then for the house plants.
Mr Bill--
"The EPA Report" and "The SG Report (1986?) is a little too general to follow. Since I'm pretty sure I own copies of both, how about offering a page or at least a section?
"It would be nice if smokers would not smoke around children period so that these laws would nor be necessary."
You didn't finish your sentence oh great crusader. Had you done so, it would have read like this;
...nor be necessary, but since that is unlikely, and I am God, and protecting other poeple's kids is the reason I live and breath, I will devote the rest of my life to being your nanny and to nagging politicians until every anti-smoker law I can think of is passed.
Erik, you da man. I'm am so far behind you and so full of admiration for you that I'm nearly in tears as I write this. When I think that out there, somewhere, is a man, a real man, who's not afraid to say that he's worried about everybody's health and wants to do something about it...well I just choke up, that's all.
Before, I was lost, even despondent. I would wake up in the morning and say to myself; "If only I knew there was someone out there who cared about my health more than I do myself. If only there was a perfect stranger who could be- not just mine- but everybody's nanny. If only there was a flesh and blood health nanny"...sigh...
But then Erik, I wished upon a star and, shazam, my prayers were answered and here you are! Oh joyyyy.
Erik, Bill and Jill are cool, but you are my most favorite nanny on this site, heck, in the whole world even. The way you talk like god and stuff and seem so concerned for everybody and want to pass a million laws and stuff and hound adults who smoke right into their homes and cars and cool things like that...wow, I mean you are just so cool.
I have a secret Erik. Now, everytime I light up a non-filtered Luckie while my wife is nursing our 6 month old daughter in the back seat of our small sedan I think of the Luckie as a good luck talisman and dedicate it to you.
Nannyism: Why not ban children in cars?
Here we are confronted by the dreaded social disease of nannyism, the irrepressible urge toward do-good coercion. The nannies are all around us now, attempting to ban smoking in outdoor areas, including New York's vast Central Park, working to eliminate one schoolyard game after another, including dodge ball (too violent), tag (hurts feelings by turning kids into targets), and just about any game with winners and losers (competition douses the cooperative ethic, and losers can be traumatized for life).
Nannyism is a progressive affliction. When the nannies get something from the public, they always want more--helmets for tots riding tricycles, for example. Now that the sensible rules against drivers' use of hand-held phones have caught on, the campaign against hands-free phones has begun. "Inattention blindness," we are told, is the real villain, and a recent study says that all drivers who use phones--hand-held or not--are four times as likely as other drivers to have serious crash injuries. The logic of this is to ban radios and smoking in cars, and perhaps babies, dogs, and talking passengers, all of which can be distracting. Drive-through fast-food windows would have to close, too.
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opi...0829/
29john.htm
Another example for "the dose makes the poison" and what health activists make of it.
A chemical, diacetyl, found naturally in butter and other foods, has been found to cause a fatal and rapidly-progressing lung disorder when it is present in the air at high concentrations in occupational settings. [...] The diacetyl story is a prime example of what ACSH has pointed out for years: while high doses of a chemical may impair health, the typical doses that consumers encounter in their foods or through other environmental contacts pose no risk.
Another such example is acrylamide. Acrylamide is known to cause neurological problems at high doses in occupational settings. It is formed naturally when foods high in carbohydrates are cooked at high temperature -- by frying, for example. Now, various activist groups are suing food companies to make them put warning labels on foods that contain extremely low levels of acrylamide, although no one has ever demonstrated a health risk from its presence.
http://www.acsh.org/factsfears/
n...news_detail.asp
I think complete tobacco prohibition will play out somehting like this:
1. smoking banned in cars with children under x years of age
2. under y uears of age
3. under z years of age
4. in a car with ANY non-smoking passenger (regardless of age)
5. in a car even if you are alone (driving safety concerns)
6. In any open public area where children under x years of age are present
7. under y years of age are present
8. under z years of age are present
9. where any non-smoker is present, regardless of age
10. if no non-smokers are present (outdoor air pollution concerns)
11. Legal age to buy cigarettes raised to 19
12. To 21
13. to 25
14. Tobacco products forbidden to be displayed on any store shelf; must be hidden like dirty magazines.
15. Tobacco products banned from supermarkets, grocery stores, and other non-tobacco retailers (children are allowed there).
16. Tobacco products only allowed for sale at state-run stores where users will be required to show valid identification. This information will be forwarded to employers, health/life insurance companies, etc. Patrons to the stores will also be mailed "treatment" messages via postal mail and e-mail until a urine test confirms that the person no longer uses tobacco.
17. smoking in all apartment buildings, condos, multi-family dwellings, etc. will be banned for the same reasons used to justify "workplace" smoking bans. If the health risks are severe enough in the workplace to warrent legislation, they are certainly just as severe in apartments where drifging SHS will poison poison in other spartments. Also, fire safety concerns.
18. Smoking banned 25 feet away from any entrance to multi-family dwellings.. But, this will violate the all open public space ban, so multi-family dwellers / non-property owners will be forbidden to smoke anywhere.
19. Smoking banned in private homes with children under x years old present
20. under y years
21. under z years
22. Over x years (elderly)
23. Over y years (threshold lowered in opposite direction)
24. Over z years
25. Where any non-smoker lives
26. even if there is only a smoker living there (fire safety)
27. Smoking not allowed within 25 feet of any provate home because the smoke can drift into a window. But, this is already convered by the complete open public space ban, so homeowners will no longer be allowed to smoke anywhere.
28. All sale and use of tobacco products banned.
I give this about 5 years or less.
Welcome to the smoke-free society.
"I don't think we want to see regulations that require what parents must or must not feed their kids, how much physical activity their children must have, what their kids can or cannot watch on television, what movies children can watch, or whether or not parents are required to put sunscreen on their children when they go outside to play for an hour."
Do you really think this can be far behind? When a smoker can be denied custody - even visitation - of children in a divorce case, "smoking in the home" has already been effectively regulated.
And now that we're being blasted with news of the "Obesity Epidemic" and reality shows such as Honey, We're Killing The Kids are offered for our viewing "pleasure"; what do you suppose the nannies have in mind next?
I can just hear the strategic planning sessions. "Well, since we've almost succeeded in turning all those ignorant, evil, ugly smokers into criminals, we need to start looking to our next crusade. I say it's the fatties turn. They're nasty and evil too and they're killing their CHIIIILDREN!!"
"Ya. Ya. Ve must take ze kinder avay from ze ignorant masses und raise zem to serve ze state. Ve must begin now to indoctrinate! Have Herr Godshall write new reports proving evils of 'fat particulates' in ze air."
cj: "I give this about 5 years or less. Welcome to the smoke-free society."
I think not. The MSA and tobacco taxes are so profitable that there is no risk/chance it will happen until the MSA expires.
In fact I don't think it will ever happen. But we tobacco users are in for some harsh years.
Mike wrote:
"I take it from Bill's comments that he would therefore support banning smoking in homes with children."
I take it from Mike's comments that he supports abusing children with tobacco smoke pollution, as long as that abuse occurs in a home or car (but never in any workplace).
And yet, I've never heard of any other type of child abuse that is allowed to occur in a home or car, but not in a workplace.
If Mike's rationale was consistent, he'd also oppose government interventions to protect children from other types of child abuse, as long as it occured in a home or car.
We are heading down a dangerous road in this nation. Nannyism is now becomming the norm. We, as a society, seem to have accepted it. Soon we will have neighbor spying on neighbor and worse yet children spying on their parents in order to enforce the laws that are being passed in the name of protection a certain segment of our population.
Of course, the logical extension and end product of Godshall's theology is a totalitarian society built upon the principles of the monomaniac Godshallian Bible. That's if his rationale is consistent.
What's that about the hobgoblin of little minds?
Bill, you don't know what abuse is...when you know, come back and talk some more. AGAIN, for the billionth time, stand next to someone smoking a cigarette and then go have a "mother" burn your hands with a stove top, go live in some of these state run facilities with damage done by shaken baby syndrome and then go be a smoker's child (yeah, the ones with ALL their brain cells online, running, playing, happy with their LOVING families).
"I take it from Mike's comments that he supports abusing children with tobacco smoke pollution, as long as that abuse occurs in a home or car (but never in any workplace)."
Bill, you seem to believe that only legislators are now what's good for children. Do you really think parents are so stupid that they need legislation to prevent them for harming their children? How do you want to control each and every parent to make sure they don't harm their children (and SHS is the least of them)?
You must be brainless if you don't see any other possible way to build a prosperous, peacful and reasonable society.
Laws and legislation can only be the guidelines, not the basis for a society.
" Now we are engaged in a great new theory that once again has drawn the support of politicians, scientists, and celebrities around the world. Once again, the theory is promoted by major foundations. Once again, the research is carried out at prestigious universities. Once again, legislation is passed and social programs are urged in its name. Once again, critics are few and harshly dealt with.
Once again, the measures being urged have little basis in fact or science. Once again, groups with other agendas are hiding behind a movement that appears high-minded. Once again, claims of moral superiority are used to justify extreme actions. Once again, the fact that some people are hurt is shrugged off because an abstract cause is said to be greater than any human consequences. Once again, vague terms like sustainability and generational justice --- terms that have no agreed definition --- are employed in the service of a new crisis. "
The above quote from Michael Crichton is an excerpt from his The State of Fear. You can read the entire essay here.
In this case he happens to be talking about the issue of Global Warming, but he also discusses at some length the disgraceful promotion of the "science" of eugenics.
You'll note the parallels to today's antismokER Crusade. The list of distinguished supporters, the resources that went toward research, the dismissal of and disdain for anyone who opposed the theory. Ultimately it was hatred and bigotry that drove this movement and santioned the vilification of those who were "inferior".
History repeats itself...
P.S. Chapter 4 of The Smokers' Rebellion is now online.
I'm smoking a cigarette as I type, my son is upstairs doing his homework, unaware that he is "being abused" because his mother is a monster. Please call DHS and have him dragged out of here for his own good. I'm so deranged by my addiction that I guess I just don't recognize the asthmas, allergies, ear infections and cardiac arrests he's supposed to be suffering from.
Though Dr. Siegel won't cross this line to put Bill's jackboot quest to enter our homes through our own children to absolute rest it is the truth that must be yelled long and loud or risk Bill's socialist state.
That ETS is killing or harming "the children" or anyone else is one of the greatest frauds ever perpetrated to control the people of the state.
This IS the Salem witch hunt. No proof exists that secondhand smoke kills, but like the young girls who whipped up hysteria about witches among them, they claim that it does and then want to "burn at the stake" (or at the moment, remove children from the "guilty") those they say are guilty of "killing" others:
An Account of Events in Salem
by Douglas Linder
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/...em/
SAL_ACCT.htm
Why did this travesty of justice occur? Why did it occur in Salem? Nothing about this tragedy was inevitable. Only an unfortunate combination of economic conditions, congregational strife, teenage boredom, and personal jealousies can account for the spiraling accusations, trials, and executions that occurred in the spring and summer of 1692.
Meanwhile, the number of girls afflicted continued to grow, rising to seven with the addition of Ann Putnam, Elizabeth Hubbard, Susannah Sheldon, and Mary Warren. According to historian Peter Hoffer, the girls "turned themselves from a circle of friends into a gang of juvenile delinquents."
Betty Parris and Abigail Williams named their afflictors and the witchhunt began. The consistency of the two girls' accusations suggests strongly that the girls worked out their stories together. Soon Ann Putnam and Mercy Lewis were also reporting seeing "witches flying through the winter mist." The prominent Putnam family supported the girls' accusations, putting considerable impetus behind the prosecutions.
The girls accusations and their ever more polished performances, including the new act of being struck dumb, played to large and believing audiences.
Persons who scoffed at accusations of witchcraft risked becoming targets of accusations themselves. One man [also ironically an opinionated tavern owner] who was openly critical of the trials paid for his skepticism with his life.
The witches disappeared, but witchhunting in America did not. Each generation must learn the lessons of history or risk repeating its mistakes. Salem should warn us to think hard about how to best safeguard and improve our system of justice.
Bill, Erik, Jill, Glantz, Banzhaf, Myers, etc, and yes, even our good Dr. Siegel who had a hand in whipping up this hysteria even if he stops short of being involved in actually rounding up the witches, are the gang of girls.
In response to cj, Soren correctly notes:
"The MSA and tobacco taxes are so profitable that there is no risk/chance it will happen until the MSA expires." (bold mine)
Many (if not all) of us have agreed that as long as the MSA exists and the state reaps the financial rewards tobacco will not be made illegal or smoking restrictions so radically strong as to strangle the income to unacceptable (to the state's) levels.
But many make the mistake of believing the MSA has an expiration date through no fault of their own. When the MSA is discussed the writer or speaker never fails to add that it's a $246 billion settlement over a 25 year period.. True, that's what the figure has been estimated to be for that period but the settlement actually is that the tobacco companies would make annual payments IN PERPETUITY.
Dear Margaret-the-Monster,
I was an "abused child" too. My mother smoked - even while she was pregnant with me. What horror! No one realized then how evil she was! If only they had known!
Seriously though...
Ironically, of my "evil" parents' four children, only one has developed any sort of breathing problems. That was my sister. The one who has never smoked.
And she didn't develop the problem until she was long gone from the "horrible clouds of ETS" that surrounded us all as children. Hers came about shortly after her oldest son drowned. Her doctor diagnosed it then as "stress-induced asthma". She lives alone in a smoke-free house, she drives a car that has never been smoked in, doesn't go to bars or casinos (though her home is in Las Vegas); and still she suffers periodic attacks. She's allergic to dust and mold and pollen, to cleaning agents and solvents, perfume and cologne, to most animals and many foods. In short, life isn't much fun for her.
You know what's really odd? When my husband and I went to visit her last Fall, she insisted we stay in her guest room. "You know,", she said, "I don't think smoke or no smoke makes any difference to how I feel, so don't worry about it." We did not, however, smoke inside her house, but only on the deck outside. She usually came out to join us and she told us she liked the smell of our cigarettes, because it reminded her of home and friends and good times. And she didn't cough once or need to use her nebulizer the whole week we were there!
Come on Kathleen. It's obvious your sister is suffering from SHS damage.
I have one sibling out of 5 that doesn't smoke. She too is the only one that has ever had bronchitis and pneumonia and complains of asthma and allergies. I'm sure that due to her SHS exposure, not the fact that she's 300 lbs. or that she was a hairdresser in her late teens/early twenties. I never light up in front of her, but she often seeks me out to where I am trying to avoid smoking near her. Even more ironic? Her two children smoke. My other sister's (smokers)kids don't. My 3 are young but have never been ill.
Soren and JustTheFacts,
I'm not trying to be argumentative, but I don't see how the massive propaganda campaign, and the resulting legislation, can be construed as anything but the start of a complete prohibition effort.
Calabasas comes closest at this point. A few years ago, Montgomery County MD attempted to pass a law fining anyone smoking in their own home if the smoke exited out an open window and entered the home of someone else. Smoking has already been banned in many parks and beaches.
Here in NJ, some of the proposed amendments to the "workplace" smoking ban include a ban in rectories/convents, and also in on-campus college administrator living quarters; sure these are "private residences" but there may be people working there or coming for a visit; they have to be protected too. They are also trying to add the 25-foot outdoor ban. They are attempting to rescind the extension for private fraternal clubs, and severely limiting the definition of such clubs. They are attempting to redefine a "tobacco retail establishment" in such a way that sames of cigarettes do not count toward tobacco revenue (only cigars, loose tobacco, etc. will count). The existing law also bans smoking anywhere on the grounds of any primary or secondary school.
The arguments they are using can easily be extended to almost any private homes. What if you have a maid service? What if a meter reader needs to come into your house? These are all workers who will be exposed to ETS and need to be protected. My point is that if you accept the initial premise that ETS is so deadly, then the stage is already set to criminalize tobacco smoking completely.
When tobacco is eventually banned, the money will keep flowing in. Fines for smoking will continue to rise. In NJ right now, the fines are 250, 500, and 1000 for each subsequent offense. That's a lot of quick money compared to collecting it slowly with taxes. Once it is crimialized, expect stiffer fines or maybe even "kinpin drug dealer" penalties for anyone with over a certain amount of tobacco. If taxes were a better income generator than criminal fines, then marijuana would have been legalized a long time ago. Furthermore, if tobacco were made illegal, I don't see how that would cause the MSA money to dry up (you may know more abot the details than me). Most relevantly to this thread, if the "smoking equal child abuse" idea continues to gather steam, then we can realistically have prison sentences for smoking parents, smoking visitors to a home, etc.
Anyway, here are some more predictions:
A. 25-foot buffer zones expanded to 35 feet
50 feet
100 feet
etc.
B. "Smoke free school zones" will be created; no smoking anywhere within ever increasing raddii from a school. If you live close to a school, you will not be able to smoke on your own property or in your own home.
C. Smoking will be banned (indorrs outdoors, private dorms, etc.) on all college campuses (Most colleges already refuse to sell cigarettes in the stores even though the students are of age).
I can think of more, as I'm sure you can too. The bottom line is that we will have prohibition in one form or another, if not de-jure, then definitely de-facto.
I think equating exposing children in a home to secondhand smoke with child abuse is a terrible injustice to actual child abuse victims. And I think it shows a lack of sensitivity and thoughtful reflection on this issue. If we can't make a clear distinction between child abuse and exposure to secondhand smoke, then I think we have some more serious problems to worry about than simply the exposure of kids to tobacco smoke.
"If we can't make a clear distinction between child abuse and exposure to secondhand smoke, then I think we have some more serious problems to worry about than simply the exposure of kids to tobacco smoke."
We DO have serious problems to worry about Dr. Siegel. When the fact that an ex-spouse smokes can be grounds to deny parental rights, where is the clear distinction between child abuse and exposure to SHS? This is not mere rhetoric, this is very real and very wrong!
The problem with "it's for the children" is that children rebel against rules. You say I can't smoke, so I will. You say I can't drink, so I will. I could go on and on. We seem to be tossing commom sense out the window.
Just as an aside, I had a law teacher say to our class "The law and common sense are mutually exclusive".
cj, I don't disagree that the places that smoking can take place might one day be, say, squeezed down to strategically placed pens within cities. The crusading anti-smokers' master plan is certainly their "smoke-free society." I'm perfectly aware of all the restrictions you describe so I'm not speaking without being fully knowledgeable. But they can't achieve it without the legislators. They might be able to get the lawmakers to take it THAT far but as long as there is money to be made from tobacco the chance that tobacco will be prohibited outright is slim to none.
It's just not realistic to believe that fines collected for violating bans could ever come close to being the cash cow that the MSA and tobacco taxes have been. The DOJ case will probably pay too (just not as much as hoped). You're talking pennies to billions.
Coincidentally there is an article today that supports this position. Texas has boldly come out and admitted that the cigarette tax hike they just approved has nothing to do with health or keeping people from smoking!! It's to fill the state's coffers! Proof enough that they and other states (and the federal govt) will continue to depend on the sale of cigarettes -- NOT prohibition -- for their budgets!
Texas House passes tobacco tax
4/27/2006
http://www.news8austin.com/conte...asp?
ArID=160768
Texas House lawmakers passed a new tax on tobacco Thursday.
The price of a pack of cigarettes would go up about $1 if the State Senate passes the bill too. Other tobacco products are also included.
...lawmakers said they're not concerned with the health impact of smoking and that encouraging people to stop smoking isn't the point of the bill.
"It's not a health care bill. It wasn't really about cigarettes so much, it just seemed to be a place where people didn't mind as much if we found the money there," Rep. Peggy Hamric, R-Houston, said.
Lawmakers do expect to find a big chunk of money in the tax --
$3.4 billion over the next five years. All of the money will go to lowering property taxes.
...But when it comes to keeping cigars out of the tax, lawmakers said their motivation was purely financial.
"I've been told that cigar smoking is on the decline and that it's not as popular as it once was, and so the revenue was much, much less from that than from cigarettes," Rep. Hamric said.
Dr. Siegel reiterates:
If we can't make a clear distinction between child abuse and exposure to secondhand smoke, then I think we have some more serious problems to worry about than simply the exposure of kids to tobacco smoke.
Dr. Siegel, then you need to start rounding up any and all colleagues of yours that agree that this is void of ethics and principles RIGHT NOW and put up a new front because this just in...
Smoking: The new child abuse?
April 27, 2006
http://www.katu.com/health/story...ry.asp?
ID=85441
PORTLAND, Ore. - Just months into Washington's strict new smoking law, Oregon is moving to put its own on the ballot next year.
However, there is another anti-smoking movement brewing behind the scenes, with the potential to reach much further into people's private lives.
The movement is to make smoking around kids a form of child abuse. The crime would include smoking while you are pregnant, smoking around kids inside your home and smoking inside a vehicle with kids inside.
KATU News research shows a majority of people think it is about time, but it is politically difficult to pull off with worries about big brother.
Dr. Chris Covert-Bowlds is a member of the informal, unorganized and quiet movement toward making it a criminal act to smoke around kids.
The physician is the father of Washington's new sweeping anti-smoking law for public places. He believes protecting children from smoking parents is next.
"Children are even more susceptible than adults to second-hand smoke," Covert-Bowlds says. "They are breathing faster, they're metabolizing faster, they're absorbing the carcinogens quicker and we know it's even more deadly for them as their lungs are developing."
Doctors tell KATU News that nicotine causes the placenta to receive less blood flow, meaning less oxygen to the baby's body and less oxygen to the baby's brain.
Results from a KATU News/Survey USA poll show that a strong majority of people in our area think smoking should be considered child abuse, whether it is while pregnant, while in the car with a kid or inside your home.
However, there have been almost no legislative efforts to specifically protect children.
"How would you implement something like that? How would you enforce something like that?" asks Courtni Dresser with the American Cancer Society of Oregon.
For the anti-smoking organizations like the American Cancer Society, it has been an uphill political battle against tobacco and restaurant lobbyists to get any smoking legislation.
Raising it to a crime is an even tougher sell that is not on the American Cancer Society's radar right now. [emphasis mine] Banning smoking from public places and helping smokers stop is their focus.
"We aren't here to criminalize smokers," says Dresser. "What is happening to them is an addiction and we know that. And we know it is very hard to quit."
However, there is legal precedent for protecting kids. Both Oregon and Washington bar foster parents from subjecting foster kids to secondhand smoke.
In court last year, Washington joined Oregon and became approximately the 17th state where a custody battle had smoking as a central issue.
The doctor on the witness list to testify was Chris Covert-Bowlds. Still, he knows that tackling people's behavior in their home is dicey political business.
"We certainly propose education efforts preceding legislative efforts," says Covert-Bowlds. "I think eventually there will be legislation to say that exposing kids to smoke in your own home is not right."
Our KATU News/Survey USA poll shows that a majority of people would choose the path taken so far - first wanting to ban smoking in public places like Washington has done, before banning it in homes with children present.
Not only is it the duty of the ethical medical professionals to beat back the extremist fanatics among them but to correct the public that has been brainwashed by way of their "gods" in white coats while you're at it.
JustTheFacts,
Thanks for responding and your insight into the matter; I guess there is something that I am still not getting my head around.
you are of course correct that state and even local governments see the tobacco tax as a perpetual cash cow. Here in NJ they are proposing (means they WILL) to raise the tax again. It is an easy source of revenue that will rarely if ever be opposed because to do so is to side with the filthy evil smoker.
Here is where I am having a problem: those in government are generally clever people. I am assuming that most lawmakers are schooled in the basics of economics and they must understand that raising taxes higher and higher will eventually lead to a point of diminishing returns. The tax raising technique does work for a while but it can only go on for so long as either people quit smoking, smoke less, travel to other states, or even engage in black market trade to avoid paying the ever higher taxes. Using my state as an example (which is of course "broke" as it is every budget year), if they LOWERED the cigarette tax, they would make a killing. Not only would NJ smokers start buying from the stores again in great numbers (many have switched to online and/or "gray" market), but you would also get NY and PA customers buying then in NJ. But, instead, they are proposing a tax HIKE. The reason has to be that the ultimate objective of the tax hikes is to reduce the rate of smoking, and of course to financially punish the smoker if he/she continues to smoke. The ever-increasing legislation against smoking almost everywhere can only serve to ultimately reduce tobacco consumption and, consequently, tax revenue.
As I stated earlier, you can explain the specifics of the MSA better than me. I am not aware of any provision in it that says tobacco use must never be outlawed. The companies involved are all also involved with non-tobacco products and/or also have overseas markets, as far as I am aware. I woulod think that the government can just keep taking money from them even if they are no longer selling tobacco in the US. I'll let you take if from here since you are clearly well-versed in the MSA specifics and can enlighten us about how tobacco prohibition will affect it.
I just wanted to clarify my statements on any post-prohibition income stream from tobacco. We all know that people will never stop smoking tobacco (just like they will never stop smoking marijuana) just because it is made illegal. But, once something is illegal, you have carte-blanche to impose more and more draconian penalties. Fines could go into the thousands of dollars (especially since tobacco is "more deadly than crack cocaine", etc.). This would also involve things like seizing assets from "tobacco dealers" and auctioning them off.
You can validly argue with me as to why my "diminishing returns" logic does not apply to any post-prohibition revenue generation. Honestly, I don't know the answer; I am only basing my assumption on the fact that marijuana is illegal, the penalties severe, and yet there are a good number of people who still smoke it.
Thanks.
CJ: Your theory certainly sounds plausible to me, but I can't say I really understand all the legal and financial ramifications of the MSA either.
JTF: What you say about the MSA and taxation makes sense as well, but it's certainly cold "comfort". And the two news items you posted are chilling to the point of sub-zero!
Dr. Siegel: Society needs your HELP and quickly to put a stop to this!! With the media now blatantly announcing that Smoking = Child Abuse, there is absolutely NO doubt we've crossed the line from ostracizing and "denormalizing" smokers to outright criminalization of an entire segment of the population whose only "crime" has been to choose to use a legal product that non-users love to hate.
Perhaps there's no way to "unfire the bullet", but you and other ethical medical professionals (there MUST be others) are almost certainly the only ones who have any chance at all of stopping this appalling travesty of justice before it's too late.
Dr. Siegel, please. If nothing else inspires you to act - in a very public and insistent way - do it for the children who are at risk of being ripped from loving parents and happy homes for no reason other than to satisfy the tyrannical desires of fanatics!
Mike wrote:
"I think equating exposing children in a home to secondhand smoke with child abuse is a terrible injustice to actual child abuse victims. And I think it shows a lack of sensitivity and thoughtful reflection on this issue."
As one who has intervened on behalf of about a dozen different children
with asthma or other respiratory illnesses who were repeatedly hospitalized due to tobacco smoke exposure, I think Mike demonstrates a lack of sensitivity and thoughtful reflection on this issue.
Many people also used to think it was perfectly normal to beat their children simply because they were beaten by their own parents. Then 30-40 years ago when a few concerned people publicly called child beatings a form of child abuse, many parents (who beat their children) were outraged and claimed that beating children wasn't REAL child abuse.
In a decade or two we will similarly reflect back on these days when parents used to expose their children to hazardous levels of air pollutants and carcinogens in tobacco smoke.
"As one who has intervened on behalf of about a dozen different children
with asthma or other respiratory illnesses who were repeatedly hospitalized due to tobacco smoke exposure,.."
Bill, you got any news about these children? Is the asthma gone now?
I fully agree with Bill Godshall. What a wonderful society we will live in when the police can invade a person's private home and take away the children from the parents because they were smoking. Can you imagine the scene: the children screaming for mommy and daddy as the state tells them that their parents are criminals for loving them as best they knew how. The wonderful government can love your children so much more than any caring parent.
And since the police doesn't know if parents are smoking in their home, they will have to rely on denounciations from neighbours, or send SWAT teams on no-knock actions.
You would need to have unlimited faith in the judgment of governmental officials and enforcement agents to even allow them to get near your kids.
Like here ...
An unidentified elderly Horn Lake couple were hospitalized today after police burst into their home thinking it housed a methamphetamine laboratory.
The incident occurred Wednesday about 4 a.m., said police Capt. Shannon Beshears.
Beshears said it was the right address but the wrong house.
Beshears said a heavily armed Tactical Apprehension Containment Team stormed the house.
"We had good information from a reliable source that had been backed up by a purchase of narcotics linked to the address. However, when we arrived at the designated address, there were two houses on the lot. We hit the larger of the two houses.
"It was the wrong house," Beshears said. "The house was totally dark and the TACT members went through to the bedroom looking for the suspects."
A man and a woman--both in their 80s --were injured as TACT team members secured the house although no drugs were found.
http://www.theagitator.com/archi...ves/
2006_03.php
or here ...
n many American towns, violent SWAT teams come swooping down for such workaday minutia as serving warrants for minor court cases. Even worse, drug cops with paranoid vendettas against law-abiding citizens will use the paramilitary goons against their personal targets.
http://www.sploid.com/news/2006/
...e_of_the_us.php
And there are many more examples of unjustified intrusions in private matters.
"In a decade or two we will similarly reflect back on these days when parents used to expose their children to hazardous levels of air pollutants and carcinogens in tobacco smoke."
In a "decade or two", most children won't even be raised by their own parents if this is the path you and your fellow facists are allowed to take, Godshall.
Discipline (and I'm not talking about "beating") is already under attack, with children being told in school that they can report their parents for "abusing" them - leading impressionable children to believe that ANY form of punishment is "abusive".
I have a close friend who is a social worker for the state. She has cited numerous cases where Child Protective Services has been called in to investigate cases of "abuse" and determined that the report they got was the result of children confusing punishment such as confinement to their rooms with actual abuse.
I also have a relative whose then 8 year old son called the police after his father grabbed him forcefully by the shoulders to stop the kid from body-slamming his younger brother. The boy was angry because his mother told him to turn off the T.V. or change the channel to something other than WWF Smackdown. The police came to the house and the family was subjected to a lengthy and invasive investigation for "Domestic Violence".
In case you haven't noticed - or perhaps you have and you think it's fine - smoking isn't the only "unhealthy behavior" that's being targeted as potential cause for accusations of abuse. According to some, feeding your children the "wrong kind" of food is "killing" them and may soon be considered child abuse. How long before the "wrong" political view is reason enough to take the kids?
I don't know how you were raised, Godshall, but somewhere along the line, you apparently lost all cognizance of the principles upon which this country was founded and began to believe that you and people like you have the right to be dictators.
You don't - and even if you are "successful" in this outrageous crusade of yours - you NEVER will have that right.
In college I took a course in propaganda which entailed intense study of nazi propaganda films and Goebbels' other techniques, and the Stalinist ones too, and how and why they worked. Short answer: reread Freud and Pavlov. What occurred to me and began to haunt me even then was that basic human nature would always stay the same, and the darkest modern secrets of how to exploit the worst in it, how citizens and neighbors could be turned into ravening mobs, into feral hunters of designated prey, was now let loose on the world. It would, I was fairly certain, appear in the world again -- our illusions of civilization or of "having learned from history," our vows of "never again" were just breath hurled at the wind. Can't remember tho if I youngly believed the doomed cry of Europe, the one that went' smugly, "it can't happen here." But now we know the answer.
How improbably ironic that this does happen "here" in an era when real danger fron real Terror is being denied. I guess this is called "displacement."
cj wrote:
Here is where I am having a problem: those in government are generally clever people. I am assuming that most lawmakers are schooled in the basics of economics and they must understand that raising taxes higher and higher will eventually lead to a point of diminishing returns.
cj, your problem is that you are MORE clever -- and rational -- than the lawmakers. Your problem is not you, but them. I guess your only problem (why you can't wrap your head around it) is that you give them too much credit. Stop thinking rationally and think like them. However, for now anyway, the higher taxes actually do not diminish their returns. They still make MORE than they would if the tax was lower, just not as MUCH more as they thought.
cj: I am not aware of any provision in it that says tobacco use must never be outlawed... I would think that the government can just keep taking money from them even if they are no longer selling tobacco in the US.
There is no such provision. The point is that the MSA is a perpetual cash cow for the states (a more important financial factor than the state imposed taxes) which implies that it would be crazy for the government to prohibit the billions upon billions they make from it through the sale of cigarettes. Again, you talk thousands in fines compared to billions. It's simply not comparably satisfying. But most importantly the MSA payments are based on national -- USA -- consumption. If consumption goes down the payments go down. Matter of fact, the tobacco companies are arguing right now that their payments should be lower due to sales made by non-participator (to the MSA) manufacturers. If there are no sales in the U.S. there are no payments.
To answer Kathleen's: What you say about the MSA and taxation makes sense as well, but it's certainly cold "comfort".
I agree completely. I've been reduced to explaining this in a clinical fashion so that the story is straight. On principle it's a whole 'nother story.
Walt,
I've also done a bit of research on Nazi propaganda, and noticed many of the same techniques being utilized by anti-tobacco advocates.
This is not an attempt to call anti-tobacco advocates Nazi's but rather a look at the techniques which they used, and how they were able to turn the population against their neighbors and friends, and how anti-tobacco advocates utilize the same techniques.
In response to Bill's unfortunate comment, I think that classifying exposing children to secondhand smoke as child abuse would be the WORST possible thing that could be done for those children. In fact, I can't think of a greater harm that could be done for those kids - including exposing them to the secondhand smoke. And I agree with Kathleen. This is an outrageous crusade. You can be sure I will fight it with everything I've got.
Thank you Dr. Siegel. If you need help with the good fight, count me in. I'm a non-smoker myself. I understand the need for a healthy workplace and fully support the laws that will grant us those, but please Mr. Politician, stay off and out of my private property and home.
In following Bill's logic to the end, parents where one of them is a smoker will be forcibly divorced or children will be taken away from both of them.
I suggest we go one step further:
"Laws will be enacted forbidding marriage between smokers or between non-smokers and smokers; medical measures will be taken to prevent procreation on the part of all those who are addicted to tobacco."
The above is a slightly modified citation from the books of the British National Party. The original can be seen here: http://www.yre.org.uk/history.html
I'm not sure which is the more appalling here, the slippery-slope logical fallacy that connects banning smoking in cars with children to fascists removing screaming children from homes and presumably loving, if nicotine-addicted parents (and the wretched left-wing sounding hyperbole that comes out of such "dialogue"); the complete disregard for the viewpoint of the children and whether they enjoy or feel harmed from being exposed to cigarette smoke (it was the one thing from my childhood that was miserable, despite otherwise loving parents), or the irony in arguments made by people who smoke and are addicted to nicotine attempting to provide completely rational arguments for why there's absolutely nothing wrong with cigarette smoke and they should be able to continue smoking as long as they want, wherever they want, in the prescene of whoever they want.
This is one of those examples of something that is both sad and funny at the same time. One commenter compared smoking to various heinous forms of child abuse trying to demonstrate that the idea of smoking as abuse was absurd. Of course, every one of the horribly abusive behaviors that writer mentioned are banned by law, leaving the open-minded observer to ask, "well, where should we draw the line?" and the other obvious question, "How do you compare direct physical abuse that earns jail time with a health matter that people are proposing be fined?"
Well, a sensible person wouldn't. However, when an argument becomes desperate...
1. A free society
2. A smoke-free society
You may only choose one.
"the irony in arguments made by people who smoke and are addicted to nicotine attempting to provide completely rational arguments for why there's absolutely nothing wrong with cigarette smoke and they should be able to continue smoking as long as they want, wherever they want, in the prescene of whoever they want."
That's an image as it is created by the smoker-free lobby: smokers don't care, they smoke without respecting wherever they want, whenever they want.
It's like smokers are not humans, isn't it? They are rude, savage persons.
"Hello" said: (it was the one thing from my childhood that was miserable, despite otherwise loving parents)
So you say. Of course I don't KNOW, but I would be willing to bet you didn't really think of it that way at the time - unless you are of an age where the propaganda was continually drilled into your head in school and by a dozen or more antismoker organizations.
Of course children will "FEEL harmed" by tobacco smoke if they are constantly told it will kill them. And they ARE constantly told that now. It's exactly why "everybody knows" how harmful second hand smoke is to non-smokers.
I'll repeat the quote by Lenin: "A lie told often enough becomes truth"
So "Hello", (you actually sound a lot like our Wee Willie Godshall) make your self-righteous statements about "nicotine addicts" trying to justify evil, selfish behavior.
You should probably write them down somewhere so you'll remember them when the Nanny-state decides to take your children away because you have "abused" them by feeding them the wrong foods, allowing them to watch TV or play video games instead of getting plenty of exercise. Or perhaps just because you have the "wrong" political opinion and you aren't teaching them to be good little members of the proletariat.
Hello wrote:
"...the slippery-slope logical fallacy that connects banning smoking in cars with children to fascists removing screaming children from homes..."
It is not a logical fallacy. If you accept the underlying premise that would warrant the prohibition of smoking in a car with a child (which is basically "you are harming your child with second hand smoke, so the state must intervene to protect the child"), then it would be a logical fallacy NOT to accept state intervantion into a home where a parent is smoking in the presence of children. In other words, if one accepts the basic premise, then any decision not to apply the prohibition to private homes becomes an arbitrary preference that is no longer based on the underlying premise.
The fact that public, documented statements are being made by medical professionals equating smoking with child abuse clearly illustrate that the slippery slope is NOT a hyperbolic fiction, but is indeed very real.
Victims of child abuse ARE removed from homes (when the organizations responsible for these things aren't bungling cases and letting children die horrible deaths) all the time. If smoking equals child abuse, then the child can very well be removed from the home, as he/she would be in other cases of child abuse.
Well, hello Hello. The question is: did you only feel abused when your parents smoked in the car? or did you feel abused in your house? If so, why wouldn't you have wanted the state to come in?
And what would you want It to do?
Fine your parents, say, 10 grand a day for every day they smoked? (Oops, there went your college tuition) Force them to walk outside whenever they wanted to smoke--even when you were asleep-- and then send them to jail if they didn't? And you into foster care? Think it through. What do you think state intervention would do to a (previously) loving family? And how would a parent love a kid who ratted them out to the state?
Attn: Mr, Bill. Before you mount your spavined steed and tell us about suffering asthamtic children and their selfish cruel parents, keep in mind that Ms Hello hasn't confided that she's been ill, she just seemingly "didn't like" it.
This just show more of my point. America is not a "free" country any more.
Little by little the freedom is taken away.
I think they need to focus on the abused children in Arkansas.
Get a grip on your drunk drivers that are killing children.
And what about the folks who are driving and abusing drugs. They are never arrested or cited. Arkansas cops are stupid. A friend was pulled over for weaving, cop thought she was drunk. Had her to do a breath test thing. She passed, he let her go. Well she was high is what she was!!!
And guess what, she drives with her grandkids in the car while she is high.
Oh, guess that is not against the law.
Ok, lets all get high and drive the kids around!!
Dr. Siegel,
Regarding the question you have posed, "is banning smoking in cars justified as a public health policy?"
Since you acknowledge the dangers of SHS for children, your analysis is actually a political and philosophical argument rather than a medical one, and I find it flawed in several ways.
"I do not see any real difference between one's own car and one's own home when it comes to regulating smoking to protect the health of children." The difference is that people don't have the same right to privacy in their car when it is out on a public street. We have laws against nudity and sexual behavior in cars because they violate society's norms of decency. Perhaps smoking a foot away from a child in an enclosed space also violates norms of public decency now that we understand the health hazards of this activity for children. And the last time I checked, operating a motor vehicle is a privilege and not a right, therefore people's behavior in their cars is subject to regulation.
I believe the big point you are missing is that laws don't have to be perfect or make the world a perfect place to be a positive step forward. Maybe society isn't ready for a home smoking ban today. Car smoking bans are a good place to start because they will give children some immediate protection and help educate parents that they shouldn't be exposing their kids to SHS.
As far as your arguments against home smoking bans, should they eventually occur, you again invoke the slippery slope scenario. "Regulating smoking in the home would open the door to a wide range of intrusions into personal privacy that people would, I think, find highly objectionable. I don't think we want to see regulations that require what parents must or must not feed their kids, how much physical activity their children must have, what their kids can or cannot watch on television, what movies children can watch, or whether or not parents are required to put sunscreen on their children when they go outside to play for an hour."
As I have said before, the difference is that children get necessary benefits as well as risks from food, physical activity and playing in the sun. Television and movies may not provide a lot of benefits, but they also don't pose much of a health risk. Exposing children to tobacco smoke, by contrast, provides no benefits, only health risks. The only benefit is for parents to have unfettered access to tobacco, which is really just a benefit for tobacco companies. We have the safe and practical solution, which is for parents to smoke on their porch or balcony if they feel they must.
Moreover, in a sense we already do regulate those activities you mentioned. If a parent regularly allows their child to get severely sunburned or feeds them nothing but candy, I believe child welfare authorities would take an interest.
I respect you as a physician, but the question of whether privacy rights in the home outweigh the government's interest in regulating a behavior which we know to be dangerous to their children is ultimately a political and philosophical one. I believe that in a democracy, if a large majority of citizens agree this is the best thing to do, then car smoking bans will soon become the norm rather than the exception. Ontario will have one soon, so watch out tobacco fans if you visit Toronto. The police there take their job pretty seriously.
Lastly Dr. Siegel, I noticed that you have a link on your Web site to Citizens Against Government Encroachment (CAGE). I too have a Web site, located at http://www.geocities.com/
corpora...rate_opposition
My Web site is essentially a rebuttal to CAGE's arguments and methods. I wonder if you would consider adding my Web site to your list of Readers' Blogs and Web Sites. After all I too am a reader, even if not your favorite one. I believe this request is appopriate in the interests of presenting both sides of the debate, if it can be called that. The link could read "Corporate Opposition (Cathy Bell's site)", just as a suggestion.
Cathy,
First of all, I'm pleased to link to your site, which I've just added to the list of links under Reader's Blogs and Websites.
Second, I do agree with you that "the question of whether privacy rights in the home outweigh the government's interest in regulating a behavior which we know to be dangerous to their children is ultimately a political and philosophical one." That's exactly the point. One must consider more than merely the health effects.
I understand the distinction you are making between exposure to secondhand smoke and all other risks, but I'm not convinced that the question of whether an activity has benefits is the relevant one in determining whether the invasion of privacy and autonomy outweighs the government's interest in reducing a health risk.
Driving a car at 80 m.p.h. has tremendous benefits for the person doing it, but those benefits can't in any way be used to argue against regulating such a behavior. In the same way, I don't see why the lack of benefits to a behavior can be used to argue for regulating such a behavior.
I think that in a free society, we decide that behaviors in a private home are either legal or not. Once we make a decision that they are legal, we don't cast further judgment upon them, unless they involve harming other people (not increasing health risks - causing direct and immediate harm).
At any rate, I respect and admire the passion you bring to this issue and I respect your position, despite our disagreement on the balancing of protecting children's health vs. privacy/autonomy of parents.
But health risks lead to harm for x number of people, so I don't find that distinction very compelling.
In any event, thanks for the link.
Dr Siegel,having found yourself in a position of almost being shunned by your FELLOW conspirators AKA PUBLIC HEALTH,i really do wonder if you have visited the site you are happy to link to.I found it to be an almost constant personal attack on an individual who wishes to fight for what he believes in,contrary to Cathy's wishes.Can i request a link to MEIN KAMPF ? I view a personalised hate campaign as being despicable,obviously you do not.
The only problem Cathy is that risks don't always mean harm.
I hate to diaappoint you, but there is no guarntee that your going to avoid the risk, as there is no guarantee that you are going not to take the risk. This is due to the thing in life called life, and genetics.
There is also no mention in your detail about confounders.
Dr. Siegel you should really visit the site. I have met people from the cae org., and they aren't what the site portrays!
This is and ad homiem attack on the reputations of the people that she sees as an opponent in her personal crusade.
Lynda,i see this almost as a case of double standards,i cannot call a person a jackass on this blog,but a link to a personal and very vindictive site is perfectly acceptable.This is frickin ludicrous,using your own words Dr Siegel.Oppose views by all means,argue until the cows come home,BUT to condone and promote hatred in my books is not acceptable.
how can they ban something that is not illegal that people do in there own cars their own propety. My kids are healthy and i have smoked in my car,at home and outside. People who smoke almost always roll the window down when they smoke and at 30 to 55 mph the smoke goes out side. Its not right for people to tell us what is right for our kids They r my kids. This is stupid I dont see how they can do that. you cant smoke when you go places, cant smoke in your own car and more than likely wont be able to smoke in public places like the park so wheres left to smoke your house your yard when will they stop that. if they want people to stop smoking just ban it period. just like other drugs. I may not be a public figure but I still matter and what we the public people want shouldnt always be taken away. This is the dumbest bill they have passed so far it is to stupid
Brandy
They use the "risk factor" as evidence of actual harm. You see anything for the theoretical "safety" of the children. What most people don't realize is that theres a difference between risk and harm.
While walking across the road you are at risk of getting hit by a car. What these people say is that the risk, is actually the amount of harm put onto everyone. Yes walking across that road according to these "statisticians" would get you hit by the car, there is no maybes only guarantees. Our bodies can't handle small doses of the 5 unique chemicals in tobacco smoke (you get everywhere else). Instead of ensuring that children are taken care of they would rather put them in a foster home (by calling any smoking physical assault or abuse).
Remember people will do anything to "protect" children, even obviously unsurp basic rights to property.
Of course smoking should be banned ANYWHERE near young children. Second-hand smoke at a young age could ruin some child's life.
Mr Healthy child:
Prove its harming, and not a "risk"; because as I just want you to prove that I am now "ruined".
Hey I was only in a truck with 2 smokers for (at least) 6 hours for every weekend for the first decade of my life (while travelling to the "country" and from the city). I smoke, and am healthy (haven't got a cold, or needed to see a dr in a decade); yet I should be dead according to you(caused I'm way past being a child any longer-on any scale) cause I should have been ruined years ago.
You can preach dogma, but reality and the past (the highest generational exposed children - now in their 70's are beating all the records for living longer). I'm sorry but your fear of the unknown (using only dogma) doesn't work on me. Your unscientific guilt trip doesn't work either, cause I know the science in your statements doesn't add up either; as far as I can see.
I want truth, science not generalities and ignorance of epidemiology, toxicology, and science. It would be a great honour (since you are talking to people who are interested in science) to keep in the real world of provable statements.
Commenting by HaloScan
