What do you think?
- cjaroszposted 10 years ago
0There will be a new law January 1, 2014. You will be fined for smoking with a child under 18 in the car. What are your opinions? Do you think smokers are making a big deal out of it, even when there are also laws on drinking, texting, calls,seatbelts and ect.
Its an inconsequential law presented to placate a certain demographic to gain votes. That's all. The car is one confined space of many that people smoke in, it will solve nothing but to irritate smokers and get support from the anti-smoking community.
Ah, politics.I honestly think that a car is worse than in the house, and such. It is more confined. With the windows up, the smoke has no where to go. Forcing those in the car to breath more of it in.
Perhaps it's worse, but it's still just a drop in the ocean the way I see it. I really feel like it's more posturing than practicality, that's all.
It is that, of course. Posturing and another small chip in banning tobacco to everyone, everywhere.
Political positions are too easy to fight and argue about, but I think we can all agree that, if nothing else, there's no such thing as a pure motive in politics. There is always ulterior motive, always an agenda.
Boy, you've got that one right.
And the smoking bans have been going on for years and years. Every higher taxes (make the smoker pay for projects benefitting everyone) and ever tighter restrictions on where one can smoke. Not possible to believe that the fight isn't a part (and a major part) of this legislation.
An ex-smoker, I never smoke in a car with the windows up. Always had a wind blowing through, clearing out the smoke even in winter. Just common courtesy to anyone else in the car.
And you?
Why not? The All Knowing Government already limits our soft drink size and inspects our child's lunch at school (discarding it for a "proper" lunch from the school). It prohibits sale of the raw milk many of us grew up drinking and now forces purchase of health care.
What's a little thing like beating up a little more on the smokers that are helpless to defend themselves? Never forget, Big Daddy in DC knows how to live your life better than you do.
Do recall it though, when something you value is taken away as being bad for you. The Nanny state rules, and your objections will mean no more to the do-gooders of the world than that of the smokers.I agree. At the same time, how is not a better thing to give a little protection to our little ones.
The perpetual comeback from the socialists: YOU WANT TO KILL THE LITTLE CHILDREN.
Personally I'm sick and tired of hearing that from people that are using it as an excuse to turn our country into a socialist haven; to remove all decisions from the public and most of their money.
No, it is NOT a better thing to turn our citizenry into a nation of zombies, leaving all decisions from what to have for breakfast to how to raise our kids, to some bureaucrat in Washington. In the long run it will do far more harm to lots more kids than some secondhand smoke to a few today.When you smoke with a kid in the car you may not be trying to hurt the kid, but you still are.
Agreed. But that's not the question; the right question to be asking is does society have the right to determine how you shall raise and treat your child.
We already have quite a few requirements; school, "proper" food in their lunches, medical treatment, etc. How far shall we go? Is society responsible for the well being of every person, or do people - individuals - carry some responsibility.
I don't think it has to do with how we raise our kids as much as do we have a right to make them breathe 2nd hand smoke which kills 600,000 ppl every year.
There isn't a chance in the world that second hand smoke, filtered through a set of human lungs, kills 600,000 ppl every year. Nice propaganda from the anti-smoking league, but without a hint of truth in it.
Yeah, Im no expert, just googling. How many is an acceptable amount?
How many decisions properly belonging to the individual is appropriate for society to mandate?
Why do we bother to have CPS if it is not a collective societal position to protect the lives of children from those in authority over them?
Not going to answer the question?
I'll take the liberty of doing it for you then. According to the do-gooders of the country, any time they find anything anyone else does wrong, by their lights, they have the right to correct it through the power of law.
Unlimited control over private lives is an acceptable goal to them. I just happen to disagree and am unwilling to change that stance because some control freak idiot screams out "YOU WANT TO KILL THE LITTLE CHILDREN".
And I will go so far as to say that with this particular law, the children are just an excuse; the anti smoking group has been chipping at every opportunity and at every possible activity for years. Smokers are a group that have zero legal pull, make an easy target as a result, and are continually attacked. Just like here.And I will overstep my bounds once more and say that although CPS was designed, and probably manned, by well meaning people it is probably the single largest failure the US has in any program. It does as much harm as good and is commonly misused by anyone angry at a parent.
Changing subject what does the a next to your pic mean?
I took the Apprentice Program that HP offered at one time. They expect to offer it again in the future, and I believe most people that have been through it would recommend it. Even though the information given there is available in the learning center, it was still worth the considerable effort.
I am with you on this one, Wilderness, this is the example of nanny government you spoke of and I am clearly opposed. I have never intended for the state to own and raise children and not the parents.
You know, you really are going to give me a heart attack if you keep doing things like that!
A reasonable liberal that doesn't like the nanny state! Who woulda thunk it!
What are you up to this fine morning? Isn't it the middle of the night there?Hi, Wilderness, we recently moved to Panama, I will have to change my handle but have not got around to it yet. Like, I said, it is mattter degree and I do not like what it leads to. We are now in the equivalent of the EST zone. This stuff is on the same line as the supersized soda stuff.
Have a nice day.Panama! As in a very big canal or a city in Florida?
Either way, you have a good day
As a person who was once a kid trapped in a car with two smoking adults, I think smoking in the car with your kids in it is a terrible thing. Do we need a law? Maybe we do if people are too stupid to figure this out for themselves.
Unfortunately, those stupid people usually ignore the law.
So (not to compare the severity of the two... as I know you can be very literal) does that mean we shouldn't have laws against murder? B/c ppl are too stupid... or willful etc. to follow them?
No, what I'm saying is that despite any laws in place, stupid people will ignore them and folks like Sherry Hewins will still be trapped in cars with adults that smoke.
The idea is to educate stupid people.That's a good idea.
Here's a thought though. Wilderness is very smart... very educated (I'm assuming). He simply doesn't believe the facts being shared. Then what do you do?If you notice, Wilderness is simply thinking it through and looking at a bigger picture and trying to get others to see that picture, as well.
Let me see if we are on the same page.
Wilderness disagrees with the data that 2nd hand smoke is very dangerous, if I read his earlier posts correctly.
So it is not education he lacks. He simply disagrees with the data.
So assuming there are others like him... we can assume they would also dismiss the data/education you speak of. At that point, what actions could be taken to protect kids from the situation that Sherry described?It appears he is saying that second hand smoke is not much different than walking down a busy street breathing in all the carbon monoxide from vehicles. Again, he is trying to present a bigger picture.
Please don't confuse the fact that I may or may not agree with his conclusions regarding second hand smoke, all I'm trying to do is show that he is presenting a larger picture that some are not seeing, but instead are just focusing on one issue.
Not sure, does Sherry have some lung disorders or other medical issues that can be traced directly back to being trapped in a car with smoking adults?Surely if she doesn't, we could come up with hundreds that do.
"Secondhand smoke kills 600,000 worldwide annually
1 in 100 people around the world die from secondhand smoke each year, a new study reveals, and nearly two-thirds of the deaths occur in children.
Health officials have known that more than 1 billion people around the world smoke and 5 million people die each year from tobacco-related illness, according to the World Health Organization. That's about one person dying every six seconds.
But just how many people are sickened by secondhand smoke has been less clear, which led researchers to try to investigate how big the problem is. Based on 2004 data gathered from 192 countries, researchers estimate "as many as 40 percent of children, 35 percent of women, and 33 percent of men are regularly exposed to secondhand smoke indoors," according to a WHO study published in the British medical journal The Lancet."
http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2010/11/2 … -annually/Yes, I've seen the data myself, and I can also produce George Burns, who for seventy years, smoked between 10-15 cigars a day and lived to a ripe old age of 98.
Doctors and pathologists have never seen or heard of an autopsy that listed second hand smoke as the cause of death, or even as a secondary cause.
The point is that this issue is extremely complicated, and one shouldn't just jump on a bandwagon and wave their flags until they've had a look at the big picture.
I understand. You said the point was to educate. I wonder if the possibility of someone getting cancer or the other relate-able illness are simply due to DNA... in that case, how could one know what was going on in the DNA of their child? Which would you say would be wisest? If a parent said, "Neither set of grandparents have had cancer so it is safe to expose my child to 2nd hand smoke." Or... "My father had cancer so I will never expose them." Or "I wont take that risk either way."?
Then, we shouldn't expose children to busy streets with cars and trucks spewing out carbon monoxide. That would be taking a risk.
Consider the millions of vehicles on the road each day, the factories that billow out carcinogenics every day, etc. In other words, the air we all breath is filled with toxins.
And, while I certainly don't think Wilderness is going to trap children in a car and smoke cigarettes, he is certainly trying to show a bigger picture.So walking down the street... we are all exposed to the same exhaust. A necessary evil one might say.
It would be difficult to end the usage of trucks, after all, they are our nation wide delivery system... if this fails, we are all... screwed basically. A parent could maybe avoid highly congested areas if one were mindful of such a thing. After all, ppl bring their reusable bags to the store and use electric cars instead of gas... lotta changes going on of course, to make the world greener. But what has any of this to do with the choice of smoking whilst a child is in the car? We're not even talking about the choice of smoking... do as you please... drink yourself to death while you're at it. Ive been there, I understand... but smoking in the car whilst your child is inside is 100% AVOIDABLE. That's all I'm saying.Obviously there are other bad things that kids are exposed to which is ABSOLUTELY not in the slightest a reason or excuse not to attempt to limit one of the harmful things they are exposed to.
Single case examples! I would have thought you of all people given how often you (rightfully) lambast the religious for saying for example that their grandmother prayed her cancer away.
No one is saying cigarettes always kill or that second smoke always kills just that it does some portion.
As for autopsies the pathologist's job (unless otherwise instructed) is to determine the cause of death not the cause of that cause. For example the pathologist names the cause of death as heart failure not too many donuts.
The issue is actually quite simple, second hand smoke does kill people, all the science backs that and thus we should try to reduce the exposure of innocents to it.
600,000 out of 7,000,000,000 are estimated to die from second hand smoke. That is .0008% IF the estimate is correct and not grossly exaggerated by assuming that any lung cancer in a person living with a smoker is due to second hand smoke.
Questions:
1)Does that figure, .0008%, indicate a "very dangerous" circumstance, as you imply?
2) How much of that .0008% is caused by riding in a car with a smoker? Estimate: average mileage (in the US) is around 10,000 miles per year; if the child is in the car for half that (eliminating work commutes) and at 50 mph that's 100 hours per year. As opposed to 8660 hours outside the car and (we'll presume) in the home with the same smoker. Is the damage attributable to smoking in the car then equivalent to .008% X 100 / 8660 = .000009%? And if so, is that a "very dangerous" situation? Something worthy of taking the freedom from 44,000,000 people? There are a lot of zeros in that number....Please name exactly the freedom one would lose out on if this law were to be passed and actually obeyed?
Please tell me what numbers are an acceptable rate of damage before they are worth considering.You ARE kidding, right? When you ask what freedom a law restricting what a person can do, will remove you're just kidding?
As I see it I don't have to agree with an action to recognize it as something they have a right to do. People have the right to do anything they want to as long as it doesn't hurt either society in general or individuals in specific. And even then, that harm must be significant - that I need eye bleach after seeing a naked, fat streaker is not a reason to require clothing.
The harm vs loss of freedom must be evaluated, and that is ALWAYS a very gray area. Not something we simply declare "YOU WANT TO KILL THE LITTLE CHILDREN" and think that ends the discussion; it does not.
The people in this country, and every other one, carry out thousands of activities on a daily basis that have the potential to harm others, and that do just that. They are just infrequent enough, or the harm is minor enough, that we find it acceptable.
So when you support this law, have you made an honest effort to balance the one against the other? Recognizing that you need not participate in or even approve of an action to accept it? Or have you just gasped at the thought of a little child dying and spit out the automatic answer that we don't allow that? Did you look at and really think about those numbers or just gloss over them because they might cause you to change your mind and you don't want to?You can't keep decrying people supporting child welfare in a discussion about child welfare it's beyond ridiculous.
You ARE trading children's lives for the apparently central tenet that a person must be allowed to release poisons, cancer causing chemicals and addictive drugs in the same car as their child in such a way that they have no choice but to imbibe it.
There is nothing reasonable in that stance.
When there is a major freedom and/or necessity like having cars in question the issue is different but that is simply not the case here."There is nothing reasonable in that stance."
You're absolutely right. So let's make a real effort to save our kids by cutting out the dangerous things we LIKE to do, but that are dangerous and unnecessary.
Let's eliminate all all large, heavy cars.
Let's lower the speed limit to 25 MPH everywhere
Let's not allow chemicals on either lawns or farmlands
Let's do away with all long haul trucks, using rail instead.
Let's eliminate planes
Let's set electricity usage limits on homes; say 8 KWH per day depending on time of year and latitude.
Now you can scream that those things are necessary but you and I both know they aren't. So how about it - shall we also attack the things you like and want, things that kill far more than second hand smoke?
No? Then justify your actions in automatically supporting the taking of liberties of things you don't like or want, and that cause less harm as well. Guarantee that just the first two will save 100 times the lives that this law will - shall we do it?But it's NOT about child welfare, no matter how hard you try to turn it into that.
It's about making a new law, something that always results in a loss of freedom. and whether the results or conditions justify taking liberties from people.
No, I wasn't kidding. Please name the freedom for which a law that restricted one from smoking, in the car, with children, would remove.
I agree. And another law to limit soft drink sizes, because stupid people allow their kids to drink too much pop. And another to have schools inspect lunches kids bring because stupid parents won't feed them right.
There are just thousands of laws we can come up with because parents are considered stupid by someone, somewhere for not raising their kids the "right" way. May I suggest jail time for anyone spanking a 2 year old for biting their sister?
I think that that is overreach, outside of the auspices of Government authorities. This is going too far!
Excellent idea, every hour of exposure to cigarette smoke significantly increases risk of death.
In 2011 6 million people were killed by second hand smoke exposure. Smoking with a child in the car is gambling with their lives. Simple as that.
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablo … as-smokingDo try to get your facts right when making claims.
Your link says there were 6M deaths from "tobacco use", not "second hand smoke exposure".
I'd sure like to see some quantifiable data showing that every hour of exposure to cigarette smoke significantly increases risk of death - got something to back the claim? Be sure that distances to the second hand smoke are reported, along with concentrations observed at the second person. A person smoking in Atlanta is not providing second hand smoke to someone in Seattle.Sorry you are correct I posted entirely the wrong study, mea culpa.
http://www.livescience.com/23562-second … kders.html
42 000 in the US alone yearly.
Different cities no, same car, definitely.Better. However, the major things I get from it is that the "study" seems to assume that anyone with excessive Cotine in their body that dies from lung cancer has died from second hand smoke. I do have a problem with that.
The article is also heavy in repeating that blacks have a higher incidence than whites; what I got was the inference that they are physically more susceptible while it think the real truth is that there is statistically a higher incidence of smoking in blacks.No not "study" study as in a study from a very respected university by very qualified experts in the field.
Nope the study never implies that back people are more susceptible just more impacted, this is probably because of the higher rate of smoking in the African American population.
However we put it we are still talking about tens of thousands of lives (not their own lives which they are free to do with as they will but the lives of others) yearly against the inconvenience of having to step outside...Outside isn't good enough, not where I live.
All public parks, even those of 500 acres or more, are smoke free now. Apparently a smoker downwind and 1/4 mile away is killing the other people with second hand smoke. You can be ticketed for smoking inside your car if parked in a college parking lot. Or for walking on the public sidewalk of that same college.
The obvious goal is to eliminate tobacco from the US, and this piece of legislation has that at its roots. Just another small chip at the rights of others.Well then you aren't even addressing the topic of the thread anymore.
Personally I am fine with smoking outside, not in children's play areas in parks and not within 20 meters of a public building.
The simple truth is when you smoke you are releasing a frankly terrifying cocktail of cancer causing chemicals, poisons (nicotine and Arsenic are both effective poisons) and addictive substances. People shouldn't need to be told they can't do it around kids or others evidently some are not smart enough to figure it out though.
Doing something that categorically kills other people is NEVER a right."against the inconvenience of having to step outside..."
Sorry if off topic, just responding to your comment.
"Doing something that categorically kills other people is NEVER a right."
Unless lots of people want to do it: driving a pollution creator such as a car, for instance. Particularly a large or older one, as half the country does. Or using a wood fire for heat in your home, contributing huge amounts of pollution that can and do kill in the winter. Or putting fertilizer on our beautiful lawns, fertilizer that ends up in the drinking water. Or turning the thermostat up in winter, when the energy is coming from coal or other petroleum products (check out the effects of acid rain in the NE US).
Absolutely "Doing something that categorically kills other people is NEVER a right.", we just do it anyway if it's what WE want. Only attack those things that OTHER people are doing but that we don't want to do ourselves.The topic was the law in the OP, you brought up something outside the effects of that law.
No actually opposing those things is also the correct path, some of them however are harder to fix and require a more long term solution than cigarettes which really is simply go outside 20 meters and don't go near kids while doing it.Harder to fix my a$$!
I drive a Prius; the only car for years that is so clean that it is allowed to bypass the pollution tests in all states. Others drive 3 ton SUV's pouring out tons of pollutants each year - SUV's that can be banned far easier that cigarettes in a car.
I heat my home with electricity, about half of which is produced by either hydro or wind power and have taken considerable steps to limit even that. Others burn petroleum doing the same thing but without the extra conservation steps.
So tell me again how it's so much harder to buy (or require) efficient cars. We don't do that because people WANT those polluting gas hogs, not because it's "difficult" to change. The only thing "difficult" about it is that people like it the way it is.Well first off you have my admiration for your personal efforts, I do my best as well.
Next yes those issues are harder to fix, you can't just outlaw gas guzzling cars (for example) because suddenly half the population doesn't have a car.
So yes slower more measured solutions are required than simply "Go smoke over there and don't do it near kids".
Which is not to say I don't support taking measure on the issues you mention, I absolutely do.
Of course your whole post is a fallacy since it amounts to "well that is wrong but this is also wrong and we don't fix it" which is a non sequitor as you should support fixing the first thing as well as the others.You can eliminate all excessive automobile pollution from new cars by banning them. Instant drop, with further drops each year as older cars drop off the road.
But we don't, of course.
"you should support fixing the first thing as well as the others."
The "first thing" came around decades ago, we knew it, we knew how to fix it, and did nothing. Just wait until we have the polticical support to pick on a weak group of people that cannot defend themselves.
It's called hypocrisy, wouldn't you say? Only take the steps that won't affect ME; those nasty smokers need to be stamped on again. Here - let me crank up the Hummer and I'll come help!
And all the while, keep spouting unsupported claims like "every hour hurts the kids significantly" or "second hand smoke is far more dangerous than first hand", or maybe the insinuation that 15 minutes in a car with a lit cigarette is going to kill any kid it happens to. After all, it's all about PR, isn't it? Scream about the evils of somebody else loud enough and we'll all forget about my own.Same non sequitor "we knew how to fix it before and thus we shouldn't now" makes no sense.
You will also find the same people championing this (the left) as championing investment in renewable energy, carbon taxes, increased water monitoring etc. I agree we should be doing more but it's always a hard slog in the US. In much of the wold we have managed to pass carbon taxes and such.
As for exaggerated claims and such there will always be people on both sides who screw up or lie but it doesn't change the scientific fact that second hand smoke absolutely does kill people and it's one problem we can fix right now.
Doesnt state and federal make billions a year in tobacco tax killing little Johnny?
There is a huge difference between smoking and forcing others to take in your second hand smoke. Smoking in such a way that it only affects you and willing participants is not only possible it's what the vast majority of smokers do.
PhoenixV wrote:
Doesnt state and federal make billions a year in tobacco tax killing little Johnny
Isn't nicotine as addictive as heroin? Since nicotine is legal and state and federal "profit" off of nicotine even though 600,000 deaths occur from second hand smoke (according to an earlier posted claim) it must be copacetic? Surely our government would not make money knowingly taxing a product that kills our children?
If nicotine is as addictive as smack, shouldnt we get like Dr. Phil in there and do some interventions? Classify it as a disease? Maybe we could get a check and some disability?Well actually as I see it they should all be legalized but criminalized to use in such a way that it makes others do so.
It's your choice to smoke or take Heroin. Though I will say I have sympathy for smokers since plenty started not knowing it was harmful since the tobacco companies pumped tons of money into preventing that from becoming public knowledge.
Most places have access to AA type things for tobacco addiction.So if the Government makes trillions of dollars of revenue from nicotine taxes over decades, knowing full well it kills people, it seems to me, people that are "suffering from this horrible addiction" that they should get a government check in the mail to help with their disability. Right?
LOL I want to be on YOUR side! I'd be a rich man by now, with all those checks.
Instead of helping the smoker out with the millions collected from cigarette taxes, the state of Idaho remodeled the statehouse. Paid for 100% from taxes paid by smokers, and they were proud they managed to squeeze that specific politically helpless group that way.
Pretty disgusting - but - this is not a pleasant time for those that became addicted to a publicly approved drug that was actively pushed by both business and society.
Sure do! And have backed off of other laws designed to limit tobacco use for just that reason.
But this one...this one is to save the children and that very much makes it an emo issue, not a rational one.Nope the preservation of children is a rational AND emotional issue. You will notice it's those people offering all the proof and studies while the opposition attempts to hide in the grey areas of those studies with things like "it might only kill one child".
And yet not a single study germane to the question addressed by the law has been offered. Just ones that are different enough, and general enough, to offer no information at all.
Like I said, all emo and no rational.You know except all the studies on how it kills a thousand infants a year, or causes bronchitis even in small periods. Or all the studies saying you should never smoke in the same room as your child.
You know infants who by definition ave to have limited exposure. Also we covered that tons of kids live in their cars.Talking about sweeping generalization.
SIDS causes the death of thousands of infants a year. Secondhand smoke is a risk factor to SIDS. Not even the biggest one. Not even close to the biggest one.
Bronchitis is caused by a bacterial or viral infection. Secondhand smoke does not create bacteria or viruses.Was that what "it" was about? The "it" that was in "it kills a thousand infants a year"? "It" refers to SIDS?
*shakes head in disbelief* The lengths that some will go to to promote and keep alive an emo argument.No that wasn't the it. It was from you know... a scientific study.
Madness I know.
http://www.livescience.com/23562-second … kders.html
This one I believe.I think you mixed up links. This is a blog post.
Yeah, that's a blog post too.
Here's the closest I've found to the study... which really wasn't a study really, but an analaysis.
http://www.apha.org/about/news/ajphrele … +issue.htm
The interesting thing here is that race seems to be a bigger indicator than secondhand smoke. So we might want to consider fining people for being black.
In addition, the "secondhand smoke" that is spoken for as being responsible for infant deaths is actually smoking during pregnancy. Unless the police are going to go through some pretty invasive procedures to enforce the law, I'm not sure how not smoking in a car is going to help.
God I hate arguments based on media reporting of "scientific studies". It's like statistics, they bend them to say what they want to report, not what the study says. Most of them never have more than the abstract to work with and couldn't read a scientific paper to save their lives.Sorry do you not know what a blog post is either?
The university from which the research comes presenting that study in article form is not a blog post...Yes, it actually is. Universities have blogs too. But, I posted the whole analysis, so the subject is moot.
Yeah no...
blog
blÉ’É¡/Submit
noun
1.
a personal website or web page on which an individual records opinions, links to other sites, etc. on a regular basis.A google search for university blogs that don't exist.
https://www.google.com/search?q=blog+de … sity+blogs
There's one that doesn't exist at Oxford and Cornell Universities. Cool!
And no businesses have blogs either. I certainly don't write any of those for spare change.
Nice way to avoid the topic. Maybe if you spend enough time trying to convince me that I'm stupid I'll stop making points that you refuse to acknowledge.
OK,
For piss and giggles, let's get the full analysis up here. Just because I wanted to see.
http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/fu … 012.300805
Oh, the ways I could rip this apart. It's like a birthday present really.
We'll start with the infant deaths attributed to second-hand smoke. Which was really maternal smoking...
Let's see, is there anything else that a woman who smokes during pregnancy might not do... like eat right? Get proper prenatal care? Take vitamins? Do other drugs? Drink caffeine?
No? Yeah, you're probably right. Those woman that smoke during pregnancy probably listen to everything else BUT the smoking thing.
And I'm sure that actually having the chemicals in smoke pumped in through your umbilical cord is exactly the same thing as being in the car with a smoker. So no problem there.
So let's look at the deaths caused by second hand smoke that they looked at...
"sudden infant death syndrome, low birth weight, respiratory distress syndrome, and other respiratory conditions of newborns"
Holy crap! My son had 3 of the four (and sleep apnea, one of the causes of SIDS so all four). I'm going to beat the hell out of whoever was giving me cigarettes without my knowledge.
His doctor said, on national television, that he blamed that pesky gestational diabetes. He must have been so wrong. Obviously those four things can only be caused by cigarette smoking. Not poor diet, or medical complications to the mother, or premature birth, or genetics or even plain old bad fugging luck.
I could type for HOURS on the risk factors of SIDS and I could go for DAYS on why some babies are born sick. But I'm sure it would eventually come back to cigarette smoke.Correlation but no proven causation. What a strange thing to find in a study produced to prove a point!
In this particular aspect of this particular "study" even the correlation is shaky. Which is sad.
Sad, but not unusual. Pretty common, actually, for anything with a high emotional content and doubly so for anything in the public eye or the political arena. All spin and no substance.
Usually I don't get into the whole "agenda" thing either but holy crap you should see the ratio of smoking related articles in the listings of the American Journal of Public Health.
Seriously, here is a list of their issues. http://ajph.aphapublications.org/loi/ajph
Pick an issue at random and count.
Genetically modified food, an explosion of obesity, inability to access medical care, an aging population, rampant drug use... etc...
Yet a good 50 percent of their articles are somehow tobacco related. That's an agenda.
Addicts need to do what addicts need to do. And there is no point in talking to them.
graphic from http://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/resou … ag/osh.htm
I imagine that any corporate stooges will be quick to point out that the chart was compiled by scientists for the good of the nation and is therefore worthless.No, but a rational person would be quick to point out that there are other causes for stroke, lung cancer, COPD, IHD and other cancers.
Or do you believe that smoking is the only cause for these conditions? No one has a stroke, for example, unless they smoke?
Just a yes or no on that. Once again, just trying to get a read on you.
Someone who never smokes a cigarette and is never exposed to shs will never die of any of these conditions?Yeh, yeh, yeh. We can argue about the meaning of the word attributable. Or not.
I do know that since I quit I no longer seek weaselly excuses to harm other people with cigarette smoke.
I mean, you are aware that any kind of smoke is harmful to health? Exhaust fumes, cooking fires (reckoned to kill 2 million a year in the developing world), waste incinerators etc etc?
I mean it is not even an arguable issue. This thread is only of interest as an example of how the desperate delude themselvesYou threw up the stats. If you didn't want to discuss them then you shouldn't have posted them.
I personally have a problem with scare tactics. I'd be having the same conversation about alcohol or pot usage or sky diving.
If something is a risk factor in certain disease, then say it's a risk factor. Don't say it's the cause, because it isn't. Sensationalism is dishonest... and zealotry of any kind stops honest conversation. Nothing gets accomplished by dishonest discussion.
As it is, so much emphasis is put on smoking as a risk factor for *insert issue here* that other, possibly more significant risk factors are ignored.
Let's take the case of SIDS, which was mentioned earlier. Yes, second hand smoke is a risk factor. It's statistically a very very small one. The biggest risk factor is putting a baby to sleep on it's stomach. Now, compare how much press the secondhand smoke issue gets with SIDS and how much sleeping on the stomach gets.
There are cities in this country with air that is toxic. Yet those cities have anti-smoking ordinances. So in the hour you spend eating dinner in a smokeless restaurant, you are only exposing yourself to the carcinogens in the air that you breathe 24 hours a day. Good thing no cigarettes there eh?
The single biggest risk factor of stroke isn't smoking. It's high blood pressure. High blood pressure is caused by being overweight, being sedentary, drinking too much alcohol and a high sodium diet. You want to prevent stroke, sure stopping smoking might help. But STATISTICALLY, it will help more to lose a few pounds and take blood pressure meds. But yeah, telling people that smoking causes stroke is productive. Somehow. In someone's logic anyway.
Zealotry on the smoking thing ignores all the other risk factors. It also lulls those who don't smoke into a false sense of security.
But sure, my reasons must be because I smoke...
Wait. Do I smoke?'There are cities in this country with air that is toxic. Yet those cities have anti-smoking ordinances.'
What makes the air toxic?
How would rescinding anti-smoking ordinances help protect the innocent from injury?
You have no case Melissa.
I mean really. Usually there are two sides to an argument but in this case there is not.
Unless, of course, you want to assert that modern medicine, statistics, epidemiology etc are completely worthless and you know best.Wow, you addressed none of my points. K then, have a good night.
Wait, after going on a fear mongering rip based precisely on a sensationalist slippery slope argument now you are lecturing on that... That is... crazy.
Yes, I saw that one. 900 infant deaths.
I have a couple of problems though. In no case was there any indication that the deaths were caused by secondhand smoke (SHS) - just that the corpse had markers from tobacco smoke in their system. There is a world of difference between having those markers and dying from the SHS that caused the markers to be there. Extreme example, but if an infant was murdered and had SHS markers in the bloodstream it would have been included in those 900 deaths. As Melissa points out, the SIDS death of any infant with a smoker in the house is included in those 900 infant deaths, but a SIDS death is highly unlikely to have anything to do with SHS.
Same with the extreme pollution in most large cities. People dying from effects of heavy pollution that have a SHS marker are included in the 49,000 "caused" by SHS. Even if only those diseases commonly caused by smoking are considered (lung cancer, heart disease, etc.) there is still zero indication that SHS actually caused the deaths and there is nothing in that report that says that was done.
There is yet another problem as well. In many cases the cause of death is multiple. People exposed to asbestos get asbestosis and die; people exposed to both asbestos AND tobacco smoke get it more frequently and such deaths WILL be attributed to smoking (or SHS). Yet the smoke did not cause the death; it would not have occurred were it not for the asbestos present. The pollution from industry and autos, it seems to me, falls very much into this category. Without that pollution many deaths would not have occurred, yet smoking is listed as the cause.
Bottom line; your study has zero to say about the effects of SHS attributable to happening inside a car. It is unclear as to what is considered to be "caused" by SHS. I at least do not believe 900 infant deaths from SHS at all; it seems clear that such things as SIDS is being included simply because the SHS markers are present.
Yeah that was a study I quoted earlier that found about 900 to one thousands infant deaths yearly as a result of second hand smoke. You weren't there for that.
Yes bronchitis is caused by viruses which are allowed access by irritation of the lungs.No, acute bronchitis IS an irritation of the lungs caused by an infection. The bacteria/virus has to be there first. Sorry.
Yes, often exacerbated or allowed by irritation, I am aware.
So if I'm to understand, in your mind it's the secondhand smoke, not the actual bacteria or virus, that causes acute bronchitis.
I'm just trying to get a read on your opinion here.
You're saying that being one thing (of many, btw) that could make bronchitis worse to some undetermined degree is the same as causing it?Same problem I had with the study link given. Any person that dies and has been exposed to secondhand smoke has died because of the smoke.
Doesn't work.If by making it worse you mean taking it from basically no symptoms to potentially life threatening sure.
So your answer is: Yes, an infection can happen without the presence of bacteria or a virus if you smoke.
You said: "God I hate arguments based on media reporting of "scientific studies". It's like statistics, they bend them to say what they want to report, not what the study says. Most of them never have more than the abstract to work with and couldn't read a scientific paper to save their lives."
Why is winning an argument so incredibly important to you?
Even the Phillip Morris co. would tell you not to smoke in the car with your kids in it.
This isn't debatable.
http://www.philipmorrisusa.com/en/cms/P … fault.aspx
This isn't a quote from the government... this is a quote from the ppl who want us to buy the cigarettes.
"Philip Morris USA believes that the public should be guided by the conclusions of public health officials regarding the health effects of secondhand smoke when deciding whether to be in places where secondhand smoke is present, or if they are smokers, when and where to smoke around others. Particular care should be exercised where children are concerned and adults should avoid smoking cigarettes around them."Maybe you should stop believing everyone has the same motives that you would in their situation.
I'm not trying to win anything. I'm trying to have an honest conversation.
Is winning why you have conversations? Do you have someone to talk to about that?Melissa, you're wrong. You're absolutely wrong. I don't know if you can deal with that.
I'm sure you're right about a lot of things. I'm sure you're a reasonably intelligent person.
I'm sure you probably love your kids and family very much. That isn't the issue.
But the facts are that when a parent smokes in a small, confined area with a child inhaling that smoke, it is not just bad for them, it could be lethal. Debate it till the cows come home, you cannot change this fact.I'll take your educated opinion on health matters, specifically breathing issues, with exactly as much consideration as it deserves.
It would probably help if you actually understood the points I was trying to make, but you obviously don't. I have neither the patience nor the desire to explain them to you.Yes, I understand how this works... I understand better than anyone, believe me. Just b/c I do not choose to get sucked into your argument doesn't mean I can't contribute my opinion which is actually somehow, after governmental conspiracy issues and even personal attack, still on point.
Your opinion has nothing to do with any of my points.
I never made the point that smoking wasn't bad for you.
That's why I can't stand conversations with you. You never actually reply to anything I'm saying. It's like you have a conversation going on in your head and the other person is just there to fill the time until you think of the next thing to say.Yeah, you said that to the last two posters too... Apparently ppl aren't always willing to just follow blindly as you lead the "conversation."
The main point, if you don't remember, is that they might set a law against smoking in the car with your kids. 98% of the posters said, "Yes, smoking in the car with the kids is incredibly dangerous for them." You and Wilderness go William Wallace on everyone and say "Don't take away our freedom!" The 98% say, "Smoke outside, you're gonna kill your kid." The Wallace crew says, "But we have theories and blog reports."
We all get what you're saying. You've left nothing out. If you think you missed a point, you didn't.Beth, I seriously don't care if everyone else in the world disagreed with me, so the argument from popular opinion means jack to me. I also, once again, don't like your motives applied to me. You and I are nothing alike, so if you are thinking I am doing something for the same reason you would, you are likely way off base. WAY off base.
Let's try this. Just don't address me. Don't respond to my posts and I'll give you the same consideration.
I can't deal with the drama that comes with trying to have a conversation with you.I know how you're feeling right now. It sucks when you're the minority. Take all the space you need.
So that's a no to respecting my desire not to speak with you.
I don't care about not being in the majority Beth, once again YOUR issue. I don't need to check my opinion against the majority to see whether I think something or not.
Self-esteem and confidence is awesome like that.Uh... no... I was saying I respected the fact that this didn't feel like a debate to you, it felt like drama to you and I was saying I understood you wanted space and saying I would give it.
There is a difference between self esteem and speaking so loudly you can't hear any one around you... which is an addendum I felt I could make since you addressed me after I said I'd give you all the space you needed.No, the conversation with everyone else feels like a debate.
It's conversation with you that feels like drama.
Now seriously, please don't respond again to my posts. I really can't deal with you. I'm sorry. I tried, even when other people were slamming you and calling you names. But really we just aren't going to be able to interact, I lack the almost super-human patience that requires considering the huge personality differences.
I'm just going to go ahead and stop responding now. Good luck.So you are saying you want to have the last word? I getcha.
I hope it helped.
Last word to Will: Im going to bed Will. Good night.Yes, those were points that I made.
Good job. Seriously.
Now, what makes you think I want to expose people to second hand smoke without reservation? I'm interested in that jump in conclusion from the points I listed there.
Also, if you disagree with those points, could you let me know on what basis?You cannot be an apologist for tobbacco on the one hand, saying stuff like jumping stop signs is so much more dangerous than the secondhand smoke from a cigarette and an angel of reason in a debate about the dangers of smoking.
Also, of course, many, many more people die from smoking related diseases than traffic accidents. So the anology is rather silly.
Approximately 443,000 people die prematurely from smoking or exposure to secondhand smoke each year.i According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 24,518 people died of alochol,ii 17,774 died of AIDS,iii 34,485 died of car accidents, 39,147 died of drug use — legal and illegal — 16,799 died of murder and 36,909 died of suicide in 2009
http://www.lung.org/associations/states … o/tobacco/
edit: anyway time for a walk. see if I can avoid the smokers in my park (I won't be able to, lol) See you later, all.My points had nothing to do with being an apologist for tobacco. You really are confusing putting things in perspective to being an apologist.
Now, the point I was making was there is more imminent danger from running a stop sign than from being exposed to second hand smoke. Do you disagree? It was a point I was making differentiating the two kinds of danger, cumulative verses imminent. I didn't deny the danger of either one, just the imminence.
Do you disagree?
The second point I had was on the presentation of those facts. To accept that 443,000 people die from smoking or exposure to smoking you have to take that smoking is the sole reason that they came down with their health problems. That's medically impossible to determine. You would have to eliminate the existence of every other possible risk factor, including random chance, to say that with accuracy.
I explained the problems that come when you present something as a sole cause instead of a contributing factor. I have a problem with waging war to eliminate one factor while ignoring other factors that might be bigger contributors to the health problems. Like high blood pressure for stroke and positioning for SIDS.
Do you think I was wrong in wanting the most dangerous risk factor to each condition to receive the most amount of press/blame?I understand the point wilderness is making about overreach of the law (though we disagree on whether this is the best example to use to make that point - I don't think it is) but I'm a bit confused as to what your argument is in relation to this law. Are you saying that the health effects of passive smoking can also be caused by other things, so why only address passive smoking?
Actually my general issue is an overreach of government authority and the potential of this law to cause the removal of children from homes for a violation of this law.
Most of my other points were counter-points to gross exaggerations of the dangers involved in second hand smoke... which seem to be the pressing rationale for this law.
Once again, not saying second hand smoke isn't unhealthy, it obviously is. However, it's not solely responsible for every death that is being attributed to it.
Hyperbole is a great literal tool, however it leads to dishonesty.
Which is what some other of my points were addressing. The dangers of demonizing one particular risk factor to such an extent that all other risk factors are ignored. In many of these cases, those other risk factors have a more profound link/association to the health issue than second hand smoke.
By screaming second-hand smoke to the point where it is being held SOLELY responsible for all stroke deaths in people exposed to it, it's completely ignoring the effect of those other risk factors. In the example of stroke, that takes away from public awareness and also gives a false sense of security. A patient assumes that second-hand smoke is the biggest risk factor and eliminates it. That's great, but that patient is almost as likely to have a stroke because risk factor of second hand smoke for strokes is one of the least significant. In the case of stroke, it would be better to focus on public awareness of high blood pressure treatments than blaming second hand smoke. If you actually wanted to reduce the amount of strokes... rather than reducing the amount of second-hand smoke that is.Thanks for the clarification. If this law was the sole factor that caused the removal of a child from an otherwise good home, I would question the decision making process that led to such a removal. I don't think it reflects badly on this law though. Have you any reason to think such a scenario is likely? I can't see anything in the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act that would suggests such a removal would be warranted.
I think we all agree there are multiple causes of ill health for children; At least, I haven't seen anyone suggest otherwise. I don't know whether there is a tendency to focus on smoking as the main risk factor in relation to strokes, but if there is, wouldn't the best approach be to try to address more of the known risk factors, rather than less of them. You seem to be suggesting an all or nothing approach.I had not considered that aspect of the law, but...how long will it take for CPS to learn to scan police reports (or convince the police to notify them) for when tickets for poisoning the child have been issued? Performing illegal activities in the presence of the child, particularly when those activities are directly detrimental to the health of the child up to and including death...well, that child isn't going to remain with Mom for very long.
Exactly. I witnessed a mother lose custody because her child- age 13- had unfastened his seat-belt and the mother was ticketed for it.
Any crime related to the safety of a child is a reason to pull CPS in. Well, since this is now criminalized there will be CPS involvement. The police are mandatory reporters. They HAVE to call CPS on these tickets.That's just speculation. Is there any good reason to think the CPS would remove a child from their home solely on the grounds that their parent(s) had to pay a fine. If there is, that would be a criticism of the CPS, not this law.
It's really not speculation, at least not in my state. If you commit a crime that endangers the welfare of your child (including no seat-belts, dui while driving with a kid in the car, etc) you are referred to CPS.
Since it has been determined that smoking with a child in the car is a danger to them, those reports will also be included. Obviously, if it's so dangerous to children in that circumstance that it's illegal, then it is CPS's duty to investigate.
That is the logical conclusion. One that lawmakers were well aware of as well.
I'm not sure anyone posting on the side of the law should have a problem with children being taken away from their parents because they smoke. The entire argument has been that those parents are poisoning their children. Obviously, that makes them unfit parents. So of course, following that logic, the children should be removed from the home and placed into foster care.Being referred to the CPS is not the same as having your child taken away. I think referring to the CPS as a matter of procedure is sensible. It's a sad fact that there are lots of cases were children have died in the custody of their parents who were abusing them terribly, but the authorities did not pick up on it for some reason. There could of course be any number of reasons for the incidents you mention including tiredness, carelessness, plain stupidity, or a complete disregard for a child's welfare that is representative of something more serious.
The CPS has an incredibly important and difficult job to do. The line between unwarranted scrutiny and saving a child's life is razor thin. They are damned if they do and damned if they don't, but I would hope people understand the trade off between the cost of a parent being scrutinized unnecessarily vs the benefit of potentially rescuing a child from severe neglect or abuse. Something as simple as a routine check because of a fine could make all the difference.
Regardless of any of the above though, I think these issues relate more to CPS policies and procedures, than they do the law in question. I think punitive laws are made to deter people from certain types of behavior. Driving under the influence, not wearing a seat-belt etc are all behaviors that I think should be deterred. Moreso if they involve a child.
But I don't think it appropriate for a child to be removed from their family solely on the grounds of their parents being fined for doing something that might have been dangerous to the child. I think every case must be judged on its own merits. I don't think a blanket policy like that, if one exists, is helpful, but again that's about CPS policy rather than the law in question.See, I look at it more as the law of unintended consequences. Since both sets of laws-codes are made by the same entity maybe not unintended.
Now, having worked very closely with my state's CPS department when I was working with the early intervention program (they were both under the same umbrella and often early intervention was considered CPS for the disabled children) I have nothing but utter contempt for the organization.
Not once did I see a situation where their presence was helpful. Never. Good intentions, bad execution. Works in theory, not in practice.
I saw them give advice that contradicted the advice of therapists then remove the disabled child when the parent wouldn't listen. Not once, but several times. I saw them remove children with side effects of medical conditions that they concluded could only come from abuse or neglect. Because the workers were ignorant of disabilities.
I saw them remove a severely autistic child from a loving home because she wasn't potty trained at 9 years old.
Nothing but contempt. So yes, I firmly believe that if a parent is reported for endangering their child-which is exactly what this law defines smoking as, child endangerment- then yes, they will remove the child from the home. Absolutely. I would bet every cent I have that we see it within a year.Your experience of the CPS sounds worrying. In fairness I suspect there are some cases where the CPS have rescued children from dire circumstances too. Regardless though, the shortcomings of the CPS don't have any bearing on the value of this law. You seem to be suggesting the law was created with the intention of using it to remove children from the homes of people who smoke. Notwithstanding you professional experiences of the CPS, I think it's unlikely that's the case.
I answered the first part of your post in my response to wilderness.
As for the rest, there is absolutely a focus on cigarette smoke. I don't have a problem with that information being out there... yet when a journal dedicated to public health has at least a 50 percent ratio of tobacco articles verses every other risk factor to public safety combined, that is an agenda. An agenda that, whether it means to or not, is excluding focus on other, more detrimental risk factors in favor of eliminating one.
That's harmful and irresponsible. It's like plugging a knothole on a sinking ship after it has hit an iceberg. If the goal is to reduce the risk of stroke or SIDS, (for example) then the monies and efforts should be distributed in order of risk factor. If there are limited resources, then you direct them where they can do the most good. That is not what is happening here.
When behavior goes against logic, there is generally a ulterior motive. I don't like ulterior motives disguised as good intentions... especially when the results are more people dying than would have died without those ulterior motives.
No I specifically did not say that, I said that smoke can take a barely noticeable issue to a life threatening one.
A bacterial or viral infection is barely noticeable?
Look, I'm not saying that smoking is a great thing to do when you have acute bronchitis. I'm saying that smoking doesn't cause it. There's no indication that smoking makes you more susceptible.
So yes, warn that it can make it worse. No problem. You might want to warn about the other things that CAN increase the chance of a person getting it or that will also cause it to get worse. A quick trip out into the cold will make it worse more quickly as smoking a cigarette. You might want to warn about that too.
Do you see the point?
"You know except all the studies on how it kills a thousand infants a year"
Define "it" please? Because, at "a thousand infants a year" it certainly relates to neither the question of second hand smoke in a car or even general second hand smoke in the home that is thousands of times more severe.
Nor have we decided that "tons of kids live in their cars" - that is just another irrelevant Josak exaggeration. Even homeless kids that have access to an operable car with fuel in it spends more time outside the car than inside it.The other question is answered above.
Are yous seriously suggesting that kids who live in a car don't sped significant periods in it...Christ.I'm sure they do. Do they spend as much time in the car as other kids spend in their home? Except for sleeping time, I would expect on a small fraction of as much time.
Do the parents living out of a car parked under the bridge somewhere smoke inside the car? Probably not - the probably don't smoke at all and if they DO manage to steal enough money from their kid's mouths to buy cigarettes they probably step outside the car. It is already stopped, after all, and likely has several people in it all objecting to the smoke.
What if someone smokes a cigarette in a car with the windows rolled up and then puts out the cigarette and a child gets in later? Even though they stopped smoking a cigarette there would still be more smoke in the car than someone actually smoking with the windows rolled down.
Maybe there oughta be a ban on rolled up windows too? Idk.
The government has made billions of dollars on the nicotine/death market. If they keep their windows rolled down can they get some government assistance for their government approved disease?
- alexsaez1983posted 10 years ago0
As an ex-smoker, I understand what it's like to be ostracized for making an adult decision. Everyone treats you like a leper and looks at you like you're some dirty, suicidal moron while they gobble down their Big Macs, soft drinks and candy (true story, a 300 pound man chastised me for smoking while he was carrying a bag of fast food. Pot, meet kettle).
Granted, it is true that second hand smoke is bad. I made it a point not to smoke around children or adults who were bothered by it. The sad thing isn't the fines for smoking in a car with a kid, but rather the fact that the government NEEDS this law. Any parent who callously ignores the dangers of exposing a child to second hand smoke against their will needs to be psychologically analyzed.
Wilderness, what I find troubling about your stance is that you think it's part of our liberty to expose a minor to a knowingly dangerous toxin. Are you against drinking age restrictions as well, then? By your logic, I assume you'd have to be. After all, if you think we should have the "right" to choke our kids on cigarette smoke, we should have the "right" to get them sloshed if we feel it's okay.I find it just as troubling that the automatic reaction to a handful of idiots that are poor parents is to make a new law about how one must behave and that adds additional restrictions to our freedom.
Shall we analyze the groceries purchased each week to verify the child is getting proper nutrition? Check you home to make sure there is no weed being smoked there? Check the child's clothing to make sure (s)he is properly clothed with warm clothes? Shall we check the temperature in your home to be sure the child is OK?
Where do we stop in taking responsibility from adults and giving it to the state?
- alexsaez1983posted 10 years ago0
"There isn't a chance in the world that second hand smoke, filtered through a set of human lungs, kills 600,000 ppl every year."
Wow, well Dr. Wilderness, I assume you know all about the safety of inhaling toxic smoke. And "filtered through human lungs"? Human lungs don't filter anything. If they did, we wouldn't have to worry about fumes. I don't know what's worse, the fact that you dismiss second hand smoke as propaganda, or the fact that you make these absurd medical claims without an ounce of legitimate data to back it up,Well, let's see here. The smoke enters the smokers lungs, full of tar and chemicals that will eventually cause cancer or other disease. It leaves the lungs with some of those chemicals remaining behind to cause the damage.
That makes it more dangerous than if it still had a full load of chemicals, doesn't it? Best set aside your propaganda and actually think about what you're saying (or reading as the case may be).
- alexsaez1983posted 10 years ago0
"Human lungs don't filter anything". Correction on my last statement (*smack*). When I said they don't filter anything, I was referring to the chemicals. Human lungs do filter large particles, dust, etc. But cyanide, CO2 and all the other nasty toxins make their way into the bloodstream just fine.
- alexsaez1983posted 10 years ago0
From the Center for Disease Control (hardly a "lobby group").
http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statist … ral_facts/
Of course, maybe you're right. Doctors and medical organizations are just a bunch of socialist liberal hippies and second hand smoke is no more harmful than water vapor.Don't know as I'd agree with anyone stupid enough to equate second hand smoke to water vapor. So, sorry, cannot agree with you.
- alexsaez1983posted 10 years ago0
Slapping parents who knowingly harm their children with something as blatantly dangerous as second hand smoke isn't "restrictions to our freedom" any more than nailing a drunk driver. Your comparisons are a moot point because they're irrational and excessive.
Even as an ex-smoker (or during my smoking days), it really bothered me to see people smoking in cars with their kids - and I saw more often than I'd like.
Are some laws unnecessarily restrictive? Absolutely. That law about maximum drink sizes - yeah, stupid beyond belief. But this smoking law isn't stupid. If a parent needs to fork over a few hundred bucks of their cigarette money to get the message, so be it."Shall we analyze the groceries purchased each week to verify the child is getting proper nutrition? Check you home to make sure there is no weed being smoked there? Check the child's clothing to make sure (s)he is properly clothed with warm clothes? Shall we check the temperature in your home to be sure the child is OK?"
I notice that none of those questions were answered, or even the underlying concept that government is responsible for raising your child FOR you because you're too stupid to do it yourself. Except, of course, to say they are excessive and irrational. Just as the secondhand smoke is to the parent that does it, but of course they are just another stupid citizen that needs society to raise their child for them.
Care to take a shot at them? Where does individual responsibility end? When anyone decides a child is in any amount of danger from anything? Shall we prohibit dogs in the house because the kid might get bit?
- alexsaez1983posted 10 years ago0
So the Center for Disease Control is "propaganda"? Okay, I give up.
- alexsaez1983posted 10 years ago0
"Don't know as I'd agree with anyone stupid enough to equate second hand smoke to water vapor. So, sorry, cannot agree with you."
Clearly sarcasm is lost on you.Question: do you think loss of freedom is warranted to protect children from a few idiots that might be contributing to the deaths of .008% of the population that die from second hand smoke? Or that are claimed to have died from that, anyway?
Where will you draw the line? Will you take freedoms to protect ,0001% of the population? .00001%? That's how many die in the US from dog bites each year - shall we prohibit all dogs?There are laws against that too. Ordinances for keeping dogs on chains, or in chained yards. Laws on if the dog bites someone. Yes, it is another law that restricting. But its sad to say that enough people, don't have the moral judjements to know that this is wrong. Like drunk driving. People do it without using judgement. There are laws against that. Its not a select few. There are tons of people who smoke with their children in the car. Many studies have proven that second hand smoke is horrible compared to first hand.
No its not " oh the poor little children". At 18 you have a choice to smoke. Any younger than that you don't. Choosing bad habits for your children in wrong. They aren't going to lock you up in prison for it. Its a fine."Many studies have proven that second hand smoke is horrible compared to first hand. "
No they haven't. They have provided massive propaganda that removing chemicals from tobacco smoke, leaving it in one set of lungs, makes it far worse on the second pair of lungs that smoke encounters. And idiots the country over have swallowed that ridiculous tale whole as they don't like people smoking anyway. Again, "Best set aside your propaganda and actually think about what you're saying (or reading as the case may be)."
Nor are there "tons" of people smoking with kids in the car, unless you mean that literally. As in some 10 people making a ton. The number of smokers is way down from a decade ago, people are better educated about smoking and most people really do care about their kids. There are people doing it, yes, but nowhere the number you would have us believe.So we have laws restricting dogs. But .00001% of the population dies each year from dog bites in spite of those laws. Don't you think we'd better just ban dogs completely, like we're trying to do with cigarettes?
As avid you are on this subject, I'm guessing you are a smoker. And you don't have kids.
Its not about banning. Its about making moral choices for your children. You have the right to choose what happens to your body. They can't do anything about it. Smoking is bad for you and everyone around you.
Argue the subject as you may. Its like abortion. There will always be two sides. Those who agree, and those who don't.
Smoking causes cancer, and other health problems. Its addiction. I get that for some people.
There wouldn't be a law if 10 people did it.No, it's not about "making moral choices for your children".
It's about making what YOU call moral choices for somebody ELSE's children. YOU making the choices and decisions for somebody else, based on YOUR version of morality without regard to either their moral version or their rights to make their own decisions. It's all about what YOU think should be done for the children of other people.
The 10 people/no law? You are probably wrong. As long as proponents can scream out that "YOU'RE KILLING THE LITTLE CHILDREN" you will find others jumping on the bandwagon to control people's actions. No one cares that the rhetoric is mostly lies, no one cares that there are very few deaths/injuries, no one cares that it is another expansion of the nanny state that is degrading our country. Just that they have a chance to control somebody else (in this case the evil smokers) and that they must "SAVE THE LITTLE CHILDREN". All emo and no substance, little truth and less care for others.I spose in this case, you actually would be killing the children... if not now, eventually?
Your point? That because if true (if true) that someone may die?
And that has what to do with expanding the nanny state and taking away our freedoms? That if there exists a possibility of saving a life we should always knuckle under and follow orders of the sheep herders?My point? I spose just that *not smoking in the car with children might prolong their lives and *smoking in the car with children could considerably shorten them. So I spose if a parent chose to ignore this fact, maybe if someone set a law, they would stop shortening their children's lives. It seems more simple to me than not.
Actually, it is quite simple. Do we want a faceless group of politicians and bureaucrats running every detail of our lives for us or do we wish to take on the responsibility of our lives and children ourselves?
Myself, I vote for the second, even as I recognize that many (including those that like controlling others) prefer the first. And it takes more than a few lies bandied around about second hand smoke to convince me that we should forever give up yet another small piece of our freedoms. We've already given up far, far more than we ever should have.I see, you believe the reports on 2nd hand smoke to be false. Well your statements make more sense to me now. Ok.
Second hand smoke is dangerous and harmful; there isn't a chance that it is more deadly that that coming off a cigarette held in a smokers fingers. As that is what is claimed I find the whole thing rather questionable; the claimants have lost most of their credibility, no matter how "scientific" they may be.
But even if it were as deadly as they say, I would still question whether the 45,000 deaths nation wide (all ages) are a reason to give up more of what makes this country great. If it is worthwhile then ban cigarettes and quit chipping and taxing a small group of people that are helpless to defend themselves. If not, then back off, quit playing games and leave people alone to live their lives and raise their children as they see fit!Im not sure how unnecessarily exposing your children to a proven cancer causing agent qualifies as "raising your family."
No, you are not sure, but you are willing to remove that possibility for someone else because YOU think it is right.
Bring it home a little closer, Beth - religion being forcefed to children most definitely harms their ability to learn to think critically and rationally. I say so and I then scream to the world that "YOU ARE HARMING THE LITTLE CHILDREN". Is that enough that you will agree not to teach your children religious concepts or do you need a law prohibiting all religious observances? Probably a law because some people are not moral or honest enough to do what is right and not teach their children that nonsense.
So who makes the call, Beth? You, raising your own children, or a society that is too happy to raise the kids for you?This is not a case of religion... education or even food and shelter. It is simply the avoidable act of making someone else sick, possibly killing them when it is in your power to abstain. It's common sense. I mean it may not have been 30 years ago, but pretty much every one knows now.
I smoked in the car with the kids on occasion. I would have them sit in the very back of the van and opened all the windows... I deluded myself... told myself they were safe. Utter foolishness and I can see that clearly now. It didn't go on long, or happen often, but it is a hugely regrettable mistake I wish I could take back. It's just one of those things that when we know better, we should do better. Had there been a law, I would have complied. I could have certainly waited 15 or 30 min. and smoked outside when I got home. I never smoked in the house... why did I think the car was acceptable? I guess b/c I could roll the windows down. It's just that it's avoidable Wilderness and if we parents aren't thinking straight... it's good that someone out there is. There is a law about driving drunk, should we throw that out the window too?Drinking and driving is not the same as telling people how to raise their families, Beth, apples and oranges.
Of course, those laws are in place because of people who are incapable of thinking for themselves, incapable of reasoning and rationalizing and actually must be told what and what not to do.
Admitting to being one of those people does not help your argument at all.Some of us are willing to be honest. We share our names, our pics, our stories, our faults and our sins. We call it being open and honest. Some of us believe that we all have faults and have all made mistakes... some of us believe that pretending you don't is, if not the same thing, very similar to lying.
But, not willing to be honest all the time, Beth.
Can we therefore conclude your real name is Beth37?The 37 is correct, but the Beth is made up.
Should I share my last name would you share yours?What would be the point of that? It has nothing to do honesty, but instead anonymity on the internet.
While that is true and I do agree that smoking in a vehicle with children can most likely affect their health, the point being made is that the government stepping in to make laws regarding how people treat their children is a double edged sword.
In other words, while there may be agreement from parents who would like to see such a law come into existence because it doesn't affect them, they may very well disagree with another law created that does affect them.
Obviously, there are some extremely stupid people in the world, and most likely these laws are meant for them and not the general populace of responsible adults who never do such things. But again, that is not really the point, it is all about what is and what is not acceptable as far as how far the government is allowed to step in to take control of how we raise our families.You've got it. Society finds it necessary to make laws restricting other people - where do those laws cross from "necessary for the good of the country" to "I want to control your actions because I'm smarter than you (and/or have more power)"?
People will always rationalize a reason to control others; we have thousands of years of history pointing that out. And people will always exert whatever control they can; we have thousands of years of history pointing that out, too. Fail to limit that control and you will lose the game.
Not that it has a thing to do with anything, but you lose. I am an ex-smoker and although my kids are grown now, I've raised two of them.
Your freedom to swing your fist ends where my nose begins. Likewise your freedom to fill your lungs with toxins ends where someone else's lungs are concerned.
Better shut down every fireplace and wood stove in the country, then. Along with every lawn motor, car or any other IC engine. Get rid of all perfumes and air deodorizers. Outlaw all outdoor barbecues and any cooking of meat products (meats are toxins, don't ya know!).
I do trust you will support those actions to protect MY lungs from YOUR toxins?What exactly is your position? Are you rejecting the concept of law altogether, or just laws you deem to be an infringement of your "freedom"?
That the nation needs far fewer laws that it has. That we are NOT our brother's keeper. That it is NOT the moral thing to do to indiscriminately restrict people in order to do "good".
What is your position? Are you claiming that any law that provides any good result to at least one person in the country is a good law? Or that only the ones you like and that do not negatively affect you should be enacted (no smoking in a car, but driving a large polluting SUV or burning a fireplace for nothing but enhanced ambiance is fine).Thanks for the clarification. What criteria are you using to determine the laws you think we need and the laws you think we don't?
I share John Adams' view that good laws promote the "general welfare". In that regard I am a bit of a utilitarian. I think a "good" action is one that maximizes happiness and minimizes suffering. So for me a good law is one that supports that maxim.Are all laws promoting the general welfare automatically good? Do all laws benefitting at least one person also promote the "general welfare"?
These questions are crucial, because maximizing happiness for an individual or two is usually NOT in the interests of the nation and laws that do that are NOT promoting the "general welfare".Maximizing happiness (pleasure, the absence of pain) in this context means creating the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people. So the number of people positively affected, and the number of people negatively affected by a law is a factor in determining the utility of that law. Another factor would be the severity of harm the law reduces. The severity of harm reduced by a law preventing paper cuts is different from the severity of harm reduced by a law preventing cancer. These are some of the factors that can help determine whether a law is useful or not.
What criteria do you use to determine which laws you think are useful and which laws you think are not?Good - we're getting somewhere. The relative numbers of positively and negatively affected people matter, and the degree of that positive/negative matters as well.
The degree is more on the positive side (children live); the numbers are massively on the negative (more adults smoking than children that WILL be positively affected). I can't balance the two - can you? And if you can, then add it the negative values to millions of a society that has taken one more step towards the Great Nanny State.
If you are seriously asking for hard, numerical guidelines to cover every possible law that may ever be introduced you're going to be asking that question for a long, long time.You didn't consider the severity of harm, which I think we must. On the one hand you have: not being able to smoke while children are in the car. On the other you have whatever harm is associated with causing children to passive smoke. I think it's reasonable to suggest the former is less severe than the latter, which is a qualitative distinction not a quantitative one.
It is that difference in the severity of harm that needs to be balanced against the degree of those positively/negatively affected. In my opinion the benefit of preventing 5 children from developing cancer, outweighs the cost of causing 5,000 adults to not smoke for the duration of a car journey (numbers for the sake of example only).
You seem to have decided that the law in question is not a good one. I am asking what your personal criteria is for deciding what a good law is. Is it purely about the number of people you believe will be positively affected by it?Of course I did - the severity is the possibility of death. Not probability, just a small possibility. And it's not 5,000 adults that can't smoke in their own car, it's closer to 44 million adults that can't smoke in their own car. (From CDC). At one time or another nearly all those people will have a child in their car.
As opposed to probably zero children that will develop severe physical disability/death as a direct, attributable result of that smoking a few minutes in a car. It takes far more than that to cause harm.
Then add in the intangible negativity of yet another freedom lost, to go with the hundreds of others.
Still a good law? In your opinion?I think the inconvenience of not being able to smoke with a child in the car is outweighed by the benefit of not forcing a child to inhale toxic fumes in a confined space. If there was a choice between safeguarding just one child's health vs inconveniencing 44 million people, then I would choose to inconvenience those people.
I understand the point you are trying to make, but I think this is probably not the best example to make it with. A better example of the law overreaching would be the unconstitutional "border searches" (sometimes 50 miles from the nearest border) that are taking place, but that would be for a different thread.I understand that, although I don't believe it. I do not believe that you would fight for a child's health as opposed to the desires or convenience of 44 million others. If it were true, you would be stomping around demanding low emission cars, no fireplaces or lawnmowers and a host of other things.
Yes, this is a poor thread to take a stance on - the "YOU'RE KILLING THE LITTLE CHILDREN" is to easy to shout here. It's too easy to turn the discussion from reason to purely emotional. But if we take on only the easy ones, what does that say about us? If a little emo shouting means we quickly pull in our horns and give up our freedoms will we survive as a nation?Did you get that from the Simpsons?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh2sWSVRrmoBut I do think people should drive low emission cars etc, and there are laws that protect the environment in various ways which I think are useful and would also support.
I think it's a difficult position to defend because for many people a child's health is more important than some inconvenience. Suggesting that reaction is purely emotional is a bit disingenuous. It's quite a reasonable response. I don't think there is any benefit in suggesting an adult should have the right to force a child to inhale toxins in a confined space. Likewise I think there is little benefit in continuing to damage the environment.Wanting to care for our kids is a most reasonable response, just not a reasoned one.
We (and you) pay lip service to it, and more than that, but we (and you) also give priority at times to our own wants. Not needs mind you, wants. Because as a society there is a great deal we could to to protect our kids better, we just don't want to pay the price. Kids are often the price for high speed cars or backyard pools, for instance, but we won't give them up.
You say there is no benefit in continuing to damage the environment, but you continue to use iron, dug out at great environmental cost. You continue to use electricity, at the cost of global warming that could virtually destroy the earth. Same with what harms our kids; we say we don't like it but continue to do it.
It's just that in the case of this law, it is quite popular to stamp on smokers. Smokers are evil, stinky people that we all love to hate. Causing them distress is a good thing - it's another step in forcing them to stop the filthy habit they shouldn't have anyway- and it doesn't hurt the rest of us at all. A doubly whammy, then, with such a law as this one. Help the kids at zero cost to us and hurt the nasty smoker again so maybe they'll quit this time like they should have long ago.
And if some crazy old man says something like "I dislike what you do, but will support your right to do it" we'll pretend we don't hear it. Or that it doesn't apply in this case because smokers are so evil and nasty. And we don't smoke.Let me be clear then because no one is saying that.
Everyone has the right to put it in their own body what they please, (strangely I don't seem to remember you as a supporter of drug legalization) the issue here is simply that you do it in a way that doesn't force it on others.
Risk your own life only. Simple. It's not some vendetta against smokers (not saying those don't exist but this isn't one of them).
Hell if you want to take heroin or acid I support your right to do so, but obviously not to run around forcing others (particularly children) to do so too.
This is utterly ridiculous as a discussion. Not forcing others to take the same drugs you want to is beyond common sense.Yes they are. I'm saying that.
While you pretend you can't hear it, that you never do such a vile thing, that we take every measure possible to protect children. While you lie through your teeth, in other words, and go your merry way, intentionally putting children at risk for activities you enjoy and telling that nasty smoker they can't do the same.
253,000 children under 15 injured each year in just the US in car accidents. 6 children per day die. We could stop perhaps 90% of that carnage just by lowering the speed limit, but that would inconvenience us so we don't do it. While explaining that we care about kids and won't allow even a minuscule chance a smoker can harm one by smoking in the car with them. All while saying "risk your own life only" at 70 mph and that it is ridiculous to think we would ever risk a child.
Riiight!*Sigh* this is mathematically ridiculous and I can't even list the number of fallacies.
#1 Because other things are a risk to children obviously we should reduce no risks at all right? Absolutely false statement and you know it.
#2 As I have said before when the issues involves would have a big effect on the whole society the issue must be handled more delicately, having to smoke outside the car if you are driving with your kids is not one of them.
#3 Actually I have no issue with reducing the domestic vehicle speed limit (It's also better for the environment). See your point here is false too.
#4 Just because we are discussing one issue of child protection doesn't mean that is the only issue we believe in with child protection.
It's just ridiculous and you know it, there is no argument here. People can not be allowed to force others to take the same the harmful drugs as themselves.
If you say one more time that some other issue is also important to child safety you are obviously just being facetious intentionally. It's not relevant to this discussion and no one disagrees with you.
I am beginning to think this a personal issue.Mathematically ridiculous, is it? Please point out the fallacy then. The only "math" is a guess at a 90% reduction in injuries if the speed limit is reduced far enough, so you can begin by proving a mathematical fallacy in the statement with a 5mph speed limit. Mathematical fallacy, please, not an assumed social one - I fully recognize the social fallacy of a 5mph limit.
1) 2) No, but putting these two together we find the problem. Smokers are a very small group and, just as you say, present no problem in trampling them. So that's the one we pick on isn't it?
But that's been my complaint right along; the hypocrisy of choosing a small powerless group to take liberty from rather than the much larger group (which includes us) that presents a much larger danger.
That and the danger presented to children from a few minutes per week of secondhand smoke - you have still managed to ignore the request for data supporting your bogus claim that every hour presents a significant increase in danger. I do not believe that this law will save one life or even one serious illness. The reasoning is that the time in a car with a lit cigarette is just too small compared to a lifetime of living with an unthinking parent that smokes all day long. So no benefit for the cost of one more chip at liberty.
It's not that there are other child endangerment issues; it's that there are other far, far greater ones that we ignore because we like whatever it is producing that danger. We don't like cigarette smoke, so hit the smoker. We don't smoke so no pain even when it doesn't work. Except loss of self respect, and few people recognize that that is inherent in taking rights from people we don't like anyway.I think the children of the smokers are an even smaller, more powerless group.
They're cute, too, and we love them greatly.
Enough reason to trample another person's freedom, then, just not our own.Which is rubbish too I am sure if you ask plenty of parents who smoke they would agree with the law.
And could you please, as I asked earlier, name the exact freedom that is being trampled?
The freedom to raise your children yourself.
You should be terrified that it's being eroded. Seriously, terrified.Oh, I thought it was the freedom to smoke with children in the car.
Nope, it's the freedom to decide what activities to participate in with your children present.
You don't see it because you wouldn't participate in the specific activity. You'll only see it when it's an activity you do choose to participate in.Does the same principle apply to smoking crack with your kids?
Cigarettes don't impair one's decision making abilities. Cigarettes are also legal.
Wait do you seriously think cigarettes don't impair your reasoning abilities?
Do you think so many people would smoke something that absolutely kills millions of people yearly in a fully reasonable state? Of course not, I know I used to smoke, it's an addictive substance, the very definition of addiction forfeits logical thinking on that issue, it's an incredibly addictive substance.
Nope it's not legal for children. For adults definitely, and I fully support anyone's right to inhale, smoke, eat or snort anything they like... but not to make others do so.
+1
This is indeed a great deal of it. The loss of that particular right doesn't bother most of us at all as we do not take advantage of it, so taking it away from those that do care shouldn't bother them either. Grossly flawed logic.
Poisoning =/= raising.
Before I get accused of sensationalism not only does second hand smoke kill people, cause asthma, bronchitis, pneumonia and SIDS it contains arsenic and nicotine... which are POISONS.So is the bleach I use to do my laundry... and the hairspray I use to style my hair... and my daughter's by the way. When she wants to play dress up.
The cleaner I use for my toilets, the gasoline I put in my car.... I could go on.
The point being, It really is my decision. Like it's your decision to raise your kids. Once we get into "some people feel this is bad to do to THEIR children so you shouldn't do it to YOURS" is the day the fundamental right to be a parent is taken away.Then roll up the windows tight... they might as well get the full experience...
I could say the same of the experience of what YOUR children are exposed to.
You see, because everyone could find a reason that any parent is harming their kid. I could, just from what you have posted, find a dozen ways you have potentially harmed your children. Let's make laws against those too.Im not sure exactly what you're referring to, but if it's something negative Ive done, Id be the last to defend it.
So do you feel you should be fined for writing erotic poetry? Do you think that your children were harmed by your e-affairs? Shouldn't you be held accountable for that? Your children go to Christian School. Shouldn't atheists have the right to enact laws keeping you from doing that? Ever given your kids pizza? Fed them meat? Given them immunizations filled with mercury?
We all mess up our kids in one way or another. Do you really want every single thing that every person might do to mess them up to be illegal?If erotic poetry were illegal, I would not write it. As I have shared, I have been coming back from a very bad place... a place they knew nothing about, and as I am healing from these mistakes, I have over the past few months, unpublished those poems. It really helped me to write them at the time instead of acting out, but they were most likely not valuable in and of themselves. I was separated from my husband who had cheated on me and I had signed the divorce papers. Im not sure if you invited your kids into the bedroom in your sexual experiences, but I did not. I have been forgiven for these mistakes, though I think these are your ways of taking cheap shots as they obviously have no connection to the subject which is that smoking with your kids in the car is a completely avoidable danger to their health. I am half expecting the rest of the crew to show up now per usual. As for the rest, if they pass a law against it... I wont be doing it.
It's not a personal attack, it's an observation by someone who has seen in a social work setting the effects of extramarital affairs on the family unit and children. There is absolutely no doubt that they harmful to the children.
Now, the question WAS should the government have the right to come in and punish you for it? It's a yes or no question.If me privately speaking sexually with men had the potential to give my children cancer and I did it anyway, then let them press charges.
Yes you were making a personal attack, yes it was a cheap shot, yes I did think you were better than that, but I guess not.
I've shared every opinion on this matter I could think of to say that I think a law to protect kids from this potential harm is a good idea. Im done.
Nope the issue is "scientifically poses a serious risk to your children's survival" for the same reason that you can't not feed your child or literally poison them, you can raise them as you wish but you don't own them and can't do whatever you want to them especially if that includes giving them chronic diseases or killing them.
So people should be fined for feeding their child processed foods? Or sodium?
Hell, significant risk? LMAO. My son was taking methadone shots at 2 months old. Should I be able to arrest the doctors that got him hooked on painkillers?
The speed that lazy parents give their children to treat ADD... do I get to say THAT is poisoning their kids... cause it is. It's side-effects are much more significant that a bit of second-hand smoke.
Who gets to choose Josak? Immunizations pose a higher risk than second hand smoke. That's mercury shot directly into their muscles. Should I be able to say that anyone who choses to do that to their kids should be punished?Who gets to choose on medical issues... Doctors
you know being that they studied medicine... seems kind of obvious to me.
The issue here is this slippery slope fallacy permeating your point.
Sure a country where parents aren't allowed to raise their children is scary, equally scary is a country where parents can do whatever they want to their children regardless of their well being. Neither is acceptable. SO the idea that any law to protect children from their parents is unacceptable is just ridiculous. The only way to tackle the issue then is on a case by case basis.
You know logically, using reason and science rather than sweeping blanket generalizations and fear mongering of "OMG the government will take your kids or fine you for writing erotic poetry".Thank you. You begin, late but arriving, to understand the problem. So it is not clear cut, but a decision where both sides need to be weighed and considered.
We love our kids and want them safe. Enough said on that side.
The other side - what is a realistic expectation for results with this law? How many lives saved, how many serious illnesses never happen? Any idea at all except to say, effectively, that drinking a pop every 30 minutes for 5 years will kill many children?It's a bit of a slippery slope argument. I agree.
On the other hand, it's a legitimate argument unless someone is going to let me know why one practice is targeted, but not another.
In addition, you do realize the implications of this law, correct? From a CPS viewpoint, any activity that legal activity is taken for (even a ticket) is cause for a CPS investigation. This really could get someone's children taken away. It could also cause loss of custody in divorce.
Yet other, more dangerous behaviors, are not penalized by law but much more harmful to children.
I think it's safe to say that a child being exposed to one cigarette in a car is less damaging than being exposed to an extramarital affair.
So, if we are going to criminalize the behavior of parents participating in an otherwise completely legal behavior in front of their children, shouldn't we ban everything -including medications, immunizations, household cleaners etc. that are a BIGGER risk than second hand smoke?It's entirely a slippery slope argument and thus highly suspect from the get go.
The law is aimed at preventing people from doing so on a regular basis by fining individual behavior just like usually not coming to a complete stop at a stop sign won't kill anyone but is a crime anyhow.
But here you are again attempting to stick sweeping generalizations to a single law.If you say so.
Yet pointing out my slippery slope then inserting a strawman is kinda neat. Want to try some more?
I'll put my sweeping generalization against yours.
The law is based on one cigarette equals one offense. Any statement of negative health effects should be based on the effect of secondhand smoke from ONE cigarette.
Otherwise you're making sweeping generalizations too.Sorry, could please indicate the strawman?
No the law is based on minimizing child contact with second hand smoke and aims to accomplish this by punishing that behavior.
The false assumption is that the law is a purely punitive one rather than one designed to protect children even though that is all everyone supporting it has talked about.
To repeat, the law does not aim to punish the effect of one cigarette but to negatively incentivise smoking in the car with your kid.The straw man was the stop sign.
Would you like me to point out all the ways that smoking a cigarette in a car with a child and running a stop sign are not equivalent?
All laws are punitive. They all aim to stop a specific action by providing punishments for doing that action (or not doing in some cases).
You can not ethically design a law to punish people for all the times they "may have" violated that law when you are lucky enough to catch them doing it once.
Your support of this law is based entirely on the above premise.Yeah you don't seem to understand what a straw man is
Definition for you:
"a weak or imaginary opposition (as an argument or adversary) set up only to be easily confuted"
I never set up an argument or opponent to be refuted I simply used an analogy to counter your argument.
As I said you don't understand debate form
Oh, so it was simply a false analogy as opposed to a straw man.
Followed by an ad hominem.
Since I don't understand debate form (as you allege) then obviously my points are invalid.Nope you wrongly claimed I made a straw man argument that's all. Then get offended when I point that out? Pretty weak if you ask me since I didn't get offended at being falsely accused of making a straw man.
And no the analogy is not false, please indicate how the two cases are not comparable.
Also I already explained that this argument is tangential to the point, the law is to prevent smoking in the same car as children, not punishing it as int he aim is to prevent the health issues associated, the law is simply to make endangering your children in this way something with an incentive not to do.Actually, I wasn't offended at all. Nothing about this conversation offends me. Just pointing it out. If you are going to ignore points by claiming logical fallacies, perhaps you shouldn't be making them yourself.
Now how is smoking around a child and running a stop sign unequal.
1. There is the potential for imminent harm in running a stop sign. Unless you are pleading special case for an asthma sufferer, your entire argument has been about cumulative harm. There is no cumulative harm for running a stop sign. There is no imminent harm in being exposed to second hand smoke.
2. It has been proven, beyond a doubt, what the worst possible outcome of running a stop sign could be. A car accident. There is an established cause and effect. There is no established cause and effect for second hand smoke. There is an increase in risk. An increase in risk is not a causation. It is simply a correlation.
3. The severity of worse possible case scenario from running a stop sign are astronomically more harmful than the severity of worse possible case scenario from being exposed to the second hand smoke off of one cigarette.Cool good to see you aren't offended.
Well first off congrats on ignoring the actual issue but no all three objections are false.
There is a risk of harm for every quantity of cigarette smoke inhaled just as there is a risk of harm for every stop sign not stopped for the term in which that harm takes effect be it two seconds later in a crash or five years later with lung cancer.
There is no such thing as absolute proof, all is correlation and actually I think the correlation between cigarette smoke and stop signs is similarly strong. One could easily argue that it's not the stopping that killed the occupants but their inattentiveness to the road when they crossed the intersection, see, everything is possibly mere coincidental correlation but logically both are causation.
As noted the law is aimed at preventing cumulative behavior not individual cigarettes. But regardless actually every cigarette can conceivably kill and there is simply no way of knowing it it will (any amount of cancer causing chemicals can cause cancer).
Also worth noting that scale does not create a false analogy indeed analogies often exist precisely for the manipulation of scale to clarify an issue.If you say so.
You believe that the causation of driving into oncoming traffic through a stop sign is the equivalent of the causation of cancer from a single cigarette. Ok then. You have the right to your opinion.
You also believe that the potential for imminent harm is the same. OK.
Although I will question that if the law is designed to protect against cumulative use, why it is enforced on a single offense basis? It seems that the law should be enforced based on what it is designed to prevent.
Can you name other laws that work that way? Is murder, for example, enforced on the same basis?
Now the laws that DO work that way are torte laws. Those are the ones designed to encompass cumulative effects. That's why they have a completely different punitive system. One that is designed to pick apart such things as relative causation. Criminal laws are by nature black and white. Either you broke the law or you didn't. They SPECIFICALLY don't take into account how many times you maybe-might have broken the law when determining guilt. There's a reason for that.
Shh! You are not allowed to mention other, more serious, actions that we do to negatively affect children. That we do nothing about them because we like those actions and do them ourselves is inadmissible evidence.
No it's just that neither of you understate debate form.
Your argument replies on a preposterous logical leap that non belief in other related behavior invalidates belief in the first.
As in WiIlderness says: I think I will plant a tree every month to help with Global Warming" I say: AHA! But you don't support guillotining all people cutting down forests or making SUV's and thus you are a hypocrite for wanting to help the environment a bit.
It's nonsensical.Actually from your standpoint... It's "people who smoke one cigarette in a car should be punished for all the cigarettes that they may or may not have possibly smoked up to this point"
Nope. You've got it backwards.
Wilderness says "I think I'll replant the Amazon rain forest and help with global warming" and Josak says "AHA! But you don't support a $10 tax on each wooden toothpick and so are a hypocrite!".
Wilderness is the one proposing a solution that will have major results, Josak proposes one that will have minimal to zero results. Wilderness's plan is expensive to all people: Josak's plan is just as expensive but to only a few people that no one likes anyway and should already be paying in any case.
No argument from me! It is much the same as any of the other poisons we spread in our everyday lives: exhaust pollution, fertilizers, weed killers, insect killers, formaldehyde in new carpeting, fumes from various cleaners, paints and acids, drain cleaner, the common sodium hydroxide/sodium hypochlorite in every laundry room, and a hundred other chemicals. Our world is very much a chemical one.
Mathematically ridiculous is your whole argument not the specifics of a reasonable speed limit which I already said I supported.
As in there is this constant 1+1= 3
As in this discussion is about protecting children from second hand smoke and you are discussing that, obviously then you don't care about other risks to children. That is a blatantly false argument.
An issue being easier to fix is not discrimination, it's not about the size of the group or their power but the extent of the sacrifice required of them. For example reducing the speed limit significantly is a much bigger request than "don't smoke in the car with your child in it".
http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statist … /#children
The CDC shows a solid link between SIDS and second hand smoke, now infants are less than 1 year old so this is not long term exposure. The car is also the most concentrated space that a child is likely to be trapped in with second hand smoke and thus the most harmful.
You have completely invented an anti smoker conspiracy in this issue because your argument is non existent and you know it.
Also seriously you and I have discussed enough politics to know I am not adverse to having controversial viewpoints that do affect most people including myself.So no mathematical error - that was just another red herring without basis in fact. OK.
I didn't say that you didn't care about other risks: I said the obvious conclusion is that you don't care enough about other risks to take action when that action affects you instead of just other people.
Speed limit is a much bigger request (although easier to implement) but also has a hugely different return. From a truly massive saving of lives both young and old to energy independence to global warming; the benefits are not in the same category as possibly saving just one or two lives even if we could effectively ban smoking in cars. You claim you would support a "reasonable" speed limit, with the caveat that if it is outside your comfort zone you will not support it regardless of expected benefits. You will be the one defining what is "reasonable", instead of a bicyclist that does not own a car (similar to the non-smoker setting limits for the smoker). Not much help there, and rather indicates what the complaint is.
Disagree that the car is confined space; as an ex smoker that has ridden with many other smokers it is my extended experience that smokers always open at least one window. Not only not enclosed, but air movement actively sucks out the smoke. Also disagree that there is any hard evidence at all that the few minutes even an infant spends in a car is likely to negatively affect them to any appreciable degree. While it certainly might, my bet would be no - that children with smokers for parents will show no difference between having parents that smoke everywhere (including the car) and parents that smoke everywhere except the car.
Josak, there is absolutely an anti smoker campaign in this country and every soul here knows it. It ranges from continual tax increases on a small portion of the citizenry to continually adding more and more restrictions to increasing the cost in the new ACA while other obvious health risks are ignored. There is nothing new in attacking the smoker and without having a clue who started this particular legal effort I would bet $1,000 it is one of the anti-smoking groups.As a smoker as well, I can tell you that (most) of the smoke does indeed get sucked out, while, if you have a lot of sunlight in the car, you can see that a whole lot stays inside the car just floating around. It also does not get sucked out at stop lights and the window does not go down when it's raining and cold outside, though it is usually cracked. There is no way those kids aren't inhaling the smoke.
Of course they are inhaling it! Enough to cause significant damage? If yes, your evidence, please? (Actually, evidence please for the "not" answer as well - I'd be interested either way).
It takes very very little exposure to cause bronchitis in children and infants possibly leading to pneumonia leading to death.
But you know when every scientific study on the subject finds that second hand smoke is dangerous and kills and that you should never smoke in the same room as you child the burden of proof is really on you to prove it isn't.Doesn't work, Josak. If you are seriously suggesting that you have the right to change people's lives because you believe those very small amounts are exceedingly dangerous and very likely to cause death or other serious disease then it's up to you to prove it. Either prove it or back off.
Because if you can't prove that you are then in the position of saying that a very minor irritation is sufficient reason to take liberties away and that flies directly in the face of what this country is about. Just as Melissa is saying.
And that you make the unsupported claim does NOT mean that anyone has to refute it or those liberties are up for grabs.
Nope it was a mathematical issue.
Wait how do you figure I don't take action on other risks? Absolutely nothing that's what.
Reasonable speed limits are not something I could speak to, definitely a scientific issue to determine but as I said I support the theory.
Well as the CDC says that even short exposure to smoke can cause bronchitis leading to pneumonia and possibly death you are simply incorrect. Irritation of the lung wall is dangerous in and of itself. Not to mention the attention that is brought to second hand smoke by the law almost certainly reducing second hand exposure in other places.
Hell I already agreed that there are anti smoker movements, but that issue is irrelevant to this one, hell I consider myself pro smoker just not pro making others smoke indirectly regardless of their will."Well as the CDC says that even short exposure to smoke can cause bronchitis leading to pneumonia and possibly death you are simply incorrect."
Define, please, that "short" exposure. And the "can" cause bronchitis...
Does that mean 2 hours per day of heavy concentrations of smoke for 5 years? Or 5 minutes of daily light concentrations for 10 days? Does "can" mean that statistically one in 10 million will develop one of those things or 1 in 10?
These are very important definitions - is there a reason that either you or the CDC have glossed over them without any effort to define what is actually meant?
The law of which you speak, is it local, state, national? Just curious.
As for my opinion about such a law...well quite frankly I don't need a law that says I can't smoke in the car with kids under 18 because I don't do it. Nor, do I have any plans to do so.
This topic however was a matter of discussion at a recent child custody mediation session. I think someone must have done a web search to see what things people put in custody mediation documents. In the instance of which I speak that clause was simply eliminated because the couple had other more pressing things to come to an agreement on and a non-smoking clause was fairly nit picky, plus neither person had any plans to smoke in a room or car with the kids in it. I think, since the kids wouldn't get to go see grandma and other close relatives with such a clause in the document, it was going to make more problems for the person who initially wanted it than for the person to whom it was proposed as a potential irritant.
In the end it was excluded from the custody mediation document.
But I digress...
Perhaps some people need laws such as this. Mere speculation on my part but maybe some people are more at ease with not having to decide for themselves, or not having to be held responsible for doing research to learn for themselves that such acts may be harmful to children. Kind of the same way it would be as I ask whether or not kids are at higher risk for having asthma if they are exposed to such smokey environments.
If someone just tells a little bit of what they know about asthma and smoke exposure then I don't have to worry about finding out for myself.- alexsaez1983posted 10 years ago0
"No they haven't. They have provided massive propaganda that removing chemicals from tobacco smoke, leaving it in one set of lungs, makes it far worse on the second pair of lungs that smoke encounters. And idiots the country over have swallowed that ridiculous tale whole as they don't like people smoking anyway."
Wilderness, it's YOU who's the ignorant one. Here's a challenge for you. Find us a credible source of information that backs your argument about baseless propaganda. You've made all kinds of wacko claims, but not once have you backed it up. Put your money where your mouth is and prove it. - alexsaez1983posted 10 years ago0
Wilderness, you're clearly a right-winger, but you also really hate laws infringing on our freedoms. So tell me, what do you think of Republican laws - the party of "personal liberty" in your opinion? Laws such as:
-Increasingly draconian restrictions on abortion
-Attempts to limit access to birth control for religious reasons
-Promoting abstinence-only sex education in schools, leading to higher teen pregnancy rates (and yes, I can back that up too so that you can have some more hard facts to conveniently ignore)
-Forcing religion into schools though "Intelligent Design Science", despite this being unconstitutional.
All of these laws are based purely on moral/religious grounds. There's no science to support these bans. Yet I'm willing to bet you've never spoken out against this. Why? Because it doesn't fit your political agenda. This prod at an anti-smoking law is just an opportunistic attempt to try and demonize your political opponents. It's dishonest, selective, and anyone who actually takes science and logic over propaganda will dismiss it as such.You lose again. I most definitely HAVE spoken about all of those except abstinence only sex ed. And that only because the opportunity has not come up. What I have had to say has always been that all of those things are very, very wrong. ID is stupid. Religious control over birth control is wrong. Abortion - I'm generally on your side, while making an effort to understand that to millions the question isn't abortion, it's murder.
So your bet is worthless. You're right - this law doesn't fit my "political agenda" because my "agenda" is to maintain that people should be left alone to live their lives and raise their children as much as possible. We do NOT need a nation of do-gooders making all the rules for everything we do; such action causes a little damage to the nation every time it happens.
Society finds it necessary to control citizens in their lives - fine. Institute and use that control as little as possible instead of as much as it is possible to push through.
- alexsaez1983posted 10 years ago0
"Second hand smoke is dangerous and harmful; there isn't a chance that it is more deadly that that coming off a cigarette held in a smokers fingers."
Still waiting on that proof I asked for. Anytime now, Wilderness. Lay it on us.
While we're waiting here is a quote (link below) that might enlighten you a bit:
"Even though we think of these as the same, they aren’t. Sidestream (second hand) smoke has higher concentrations of cancer-causing agents (carcinogens) than mainstream smoke. And, it has smaller particles than mainstream smoke, which make their way into the lungs and the body’s cells more easily.
http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercaus … hand-smoke
Still going to ignore this as propaganda? Your claims are crumbling by the second.You're making the claim it is more dangerous, and much more so. Show the additional chemicals it picks up in the throat or lungs of the smoker; prove your point.
And please, please read for a change. Think about what you're reading. And then check it again. Look at the definitions in your link, that plainly say that sidestream smoke (that smoke that has not been in a smokers lungs) is much more dangerous. That is exactly what I've been saying, except that I use the term "secondhand smoke" in stead of "mainstream smoke" for that which has been in the lungs already.
So is the article a lie or just a major spin, trying to make it sound like secondhand smoke is more dangerous? Is either one honest - does it promote credibility to you?
- alexsaez1983posted 10 years ago0
"Probably a law because some people are not moral or honest enough to do what is right and not teach their children that nonsense."
That's exactly what I'm saying. Religion is a major part of American culture. It permeates everything and millions of religious apologists will stop at nothing to force it on others. That's why we need a law (or in your case, the Constitution) to curb this. Nobody wants to ban religious observances, they just don't want it forced on others.
The same applies for smoking. The government doesn't want to ban smoking (too much lucrative tax income). They're trying to gear a law towards a certain stupid group of people. These laws don't affect me or you.Govt. does not want to lose their tax base, true. The do-gooders that always know how others should live most certainly DO want to ban tobacco. Which you know as well as I do.
- alexsaez1983posted 10 years ago0
Wilderness, in your constant rantings about personal freedom, why have you not addressed the blatant restrictions posed by your side that I listed earlier? If you think the democrats are restricting on your freedoms, the Republicans are doing the same thing. If you keep hammering home your argument, you're just calling the kettle black.
MY side? MINE? That would the side of minimum regulations on anyone. Just which ones do you think I support? The ones I already said I did not?
- alexsaez1983posted 10 years ago0
"Show the additional chemicals it picks up in the throat or lungs of the smoker; prove your point."
I posted a link to my source earlier. Did you not read it? - alexsaez1983posted 10 years ago0
"That is exactly what I've been saying, except that I use the term "secondhand smoke" in stead of "mainstream smoke" for that which has been in the lungs already."
Second hand smoke is any smoke that others are inadvertently exposed to. Besides, what difference does it make? Smoke exhaled from the smoker AND smoke from the burning cigarette will both be present. What exactly are you trying to prove?
"So is the article a lie or just a major spin, trying to make it sound like secondhand smoke is more dangerous?"
Sheesh, Wilderness. You and your "spin" this "lie" that. Is that the only argument you have? Give it up, Dismissing something like cancer.org as being a biased spin source is the action of a intellectually lazy person who can't admit that they're beat. NOTHING will convince you. If it goes against your preconceived notions, then it's a lie or propaganda. I'm done replying to you. It's a waste of time.
Go ahead, keep acting like you're a doctor who knows more than doctors. Be my guest. Only your own ilk will actually take your counterarguments seriously. Face it, you have nothing to back up your claims. Just admit you have nothing. Seriously, admit you're wrong. Or keep B.Sing. Whatever helps you sleep at night. I don't care what adults do to themselves. But as long as "my brother" is a moron who exposes his kids to smoke, someone needs to be that kid's "keeper".
May the deep south far right winger be your own kid's keeper? Because, after all, your kid's soul is far more important than his life and you refuse to give any consideration to that soul?
Right. This sounds like the super size soda ban that the mayor of New York City tried to pull off. Idiocy.
- Beth37posted 10 years ago0
There are rules in place... laws. They are to protect those who cannot protect themselves.
They keep us from molesting them, keep us from starving them, neglecting them etc. This is a given.
Smoking with children in a small space raises considerably their chance of lung and many other kinds of cancer let alone emphysema and all the other possibilities. To act is if this is a freedom worth fighting for is really hard for most to imagine to be anything but complete and utter selfishness.Nice claim. Can you back up that "considerably" part with hard facts and figures or are you guessing? Be sure to have an average of the time a child spends in a car with a smoking adult - the claim is meaningless without including that.
Yes, but you say all the medical claims are false so what good does it do?
You can back it up but decline to do so.
I understand. Completely.I posted several links, you simply denied their worth... effort over.
I apologize if you posted links giving hard facts on the results of an average child spending an average amount of time in a car with a smoking adult and I did not see it.
I DID see links showing that second had smoke causes harm, just not anything that such small amounts as we're talking about here does. Using that reasoning nearly anything that enters our body - ham, eggs, catsup, soda, right up to water, should be banned because enough of it will cause harm.
I'm asking for data showing that the very small amount of second hand smoke a child could reasonably expect to see from a smoking adult in a car is likely to produce serious illness.Already provided above, also seriously do you believe that cumulative time spent in a car with a parent is small for all children?
I mean for starters how many millions of kids live in cars? You know since that is how so many homeless people live.Cumulative time is irrelevant.
The charge isn't smoking cigarettes over a period of time, it's smoking A cigarette in a car with a child. One time.So remove all homeless (and tenement?) children from the equation. Far fewer lives to be negatively affected by the smoking in cars, then. Does that make a difference in whether the law should be enacted? Remember, you've already agreed that both sides need to be addressed...
Sorry do you mean all homeless kids should be taken from their parents? No because the state of being homeless itself is not an indication of abuse or neglect as there are myriad ways one can end up in that situation.
On the other hand smoking in the same room as your child (unless you legitimately didn't know they were there) does demonstrate neglect/abuse.LOL No, no, no. Don't take the kids from their parents. I'm getting overwhelmed in answers and didn't make it clear enough.
The equation is that "harm to children" > "harm from loss of rights". We both agree that there is such an equation to consider before making such a law, and removing homeless and tenement children from that equation could affect the truth of it. I thought of that a bit ago but did not wish to introduce another variable.
It IS cumulative and for some children (suspect a very small number) the time will be greater.
Compared to the time spent in the house with a smoking parent is it a significant time? Enough extra to cause physical damage? I keep asking for data on this...Again the fallacy. Just because I think smoking in a car with your kid should be a crime doesn't mean I support smoking in the same room in your house. A positive step is a positive step.
Now As for specifics it's a difficult one from hat I find because lungs vary so widely but people with asthma can have serious consequences from just minutes for example.
But again let me repeat every expert says it's a terrible idea and yes that is enough for me. I am all for going with the guy who actually knows what he is talking about.The analogy is giving a (literally) starving person a dime is sufficient because it's a positive step. I disagree - the the result is going to be unchanged - if there are just as many sick or dying kids - then there is no reason to take the action.
Smoking at home is not only legal, it will be impossible to prevent short of a total cigarette ban, like that on THC (and about as effective I imagine). So does the additional time in a car significantly affect the child? Or just as important are a significant number of children adversely affected to a significant amount?
We don't know, and saying that scientists will not comment in the negative does not answer it. Any scientist doing so will immediately lose all support as well as any funding they are getting; that's the politics of the question at work. More significant is that no scientists will agree that it is true, either. At least not with numbers to back them.
Yes, individuals are different. And there WILL be one child that dies or is seriously ill from secondhand smoke in a car. Is ONE child sufficient reason to pass a law limiting freedom? If not, how many? Will there be that many?Sufficient or not it's still positive. And yes I think one life is eneough given the sacrifice requiered is basically go outside. Remember what I said about case by case basis? yeah in this case the tiny inconvenience is worth one life. Easily. I can't really state the value of a human life to me without sounding... insincere or exaggeratory.
Uhh...what makes you say the inconvenience is just to go outside? At 70 mph that might not work too well. Or, conversely, that might not work too well in a city; our city prohibits smoking anywhere within (I think) 50' of a business, which is everywhere. Or in city parks. Or on city or college grounds. Basically everywhere within city limits except residential property; just where would you suggest the smoker go to be "inconvenienced"?
Yes obviously they would have to stop if they are not stopped
If smoking is not permitted within the city limits then they couldn't smoke in their cars in the city anyway and thus are unaffected. (Though I will say I oppose such laws).Cars are considered private property under law. They are supposed to be treated the same for all legal purposes.
Which brings up another issue with the law...Apparently the inside of your car, on a city street, is not inside the city.
God, I don't know Josak! I just know you will be ticketed for walking down the sidewalk but not for driving while smoking. I never said laws OR politicians were rational! Heck - my son was ordered to shut off his electronic cigarette by the local security at a ball game because park rules forbid use of tobacco. It said so on the big sign, even. Didn't saying anything about a tube of plastic without a shred of tobacco, but security made their own rules that day I guess. People don't like smokers, even when they are doing the absolute best to beat a habit society encouraged them to take on.
We will, always I fear, disagree on the value of human life. This country, and it's liberty, was built on the lives of thousands upon thousands of lives. Freedom is worth more than any life, or almost any number of lives for that matter.
And I think this is the crux of the matter between us - we have a very basic disagreement in the matter. A disagreement that has carried over from most of our debates as they mostly hinge on that one thing. Liberty, or freedom, of all to do as they wish to the maximum extent possible commensurate with a society and culture that will live on.
This law attacks that very basic attribute of a free society and for no real gain that I can see and it is thus not something that is to be considered. Could we show a reasonable "ROR" for spending our liberty I would take the opposite stance; my grandchildren are the most precious things in my life.Well yeah if you think being forced to smoke outside is worth human lives that is the issue.
I mean it makes a complete mockery of your earlier claim to analyzing everything on case by case logical basis of course since what you are doing here is the precise opposite and a complete joke from a rational or practical perspective.
Although of course the issue is as always what is freedom? You say it's being able to smoke in the car with your kid, I say kids not growing up with asthma or dying of SIDS gives them way more freedom.Can you then point to your analysis? Expected return, based on statistical or even historical analysis as opposed to values assigned by you to both individual and cultural loss of freedom?
So far I haven't seen anything on expected return except that there MIGHT be something based on exposures thousands of times greater resulting in a handful of lives lost.
The values assigned seem to be that one life saved is worth any freedom lost. You did give a comment about just getting out of the car, but that was again irrelevant to the question as most smokers, most of the time cannot just step out.The problem with that is the unset value of freedom and human life making that an impossible scale to create objectively.
You are correct in some situations it will involve *gasp* foregoing a cigarette or driving outside the city limit/ to ones house.
I mean obviously you would have no problem with me lighting up some crack next to you on the bus right? don't you restrict my freedomOf course it is subjective. Everything connected to emotional arguments, or to ethical or moral arguments is subjective to at least some degree.
Doesn't mean it should be opened up and discussed. Doesn't mean that differing opinions are not relevant. Doesn't mean that we should do our best to "objectify" it as much as possible by looking at all facets and information possible. Doesn't mean that ONLY our individual is important; that other wants, desires and subjective priorities are of no consequence.
We still need to do the best we can for all involved. In this case the kids, the adult smoker and the rest of society all have a say in it. No one group has automatic priority, no one group is the center of any decision to be made.Well we actually know what the issue is.
One side says even a single life is worth the inconvenience the other side says it is not *shrug*.
Actually screw it, that makes me sick, how we can even compare inconvenience and the entire universe that is human life in the same scale is beyond me but yeah it's subjective.
The obvious observation to make in this thread is that addicts are not to be trusted.
You've got that one right. All the laws in the world will not prevent a heavy smoker from smoking in the car, children or not. Leave them in there long enough and they WILL smoke. Or alternatively, refuse them the OK to smoke where they came from (pick up at school, maybe) and where they are going (city park maybe) and they'll smoke in a 20 minute drive.
Which we already do without a thought as to the real world consequences.
This is what those crazy canucks have to say about kids and air pollution:
Young children are included in the sensitive groups because on a per-body-weight basis they tend to inhale relatively more air than adults. Their elevated metabolic rate and young defence systems make them more susceptible to air pollution.
http://www.ec.gc.ca/cas-aqhi/default.as … 8727DF6F-1
Just another govt organisation.Yes, pollutants in the air are bad.
Water is wet, the sky is blue, and pollution is bad.
I like cats.
Potato.
Okay, so now that you have proven a point I wasn't contending, now what?Now, you have to accept that smoke from cigarettes is a pollutant in the air. Then we can all shake hands and live to fight another day.
Um... Ok.
Accepted.
Wow it was hard to accept something that I never denied in the first place. Did you also have an entire conversation in your head? Could you let me know what I said?"There is no established cause and effect for second hand smoke."
So if cigarette smoke is an air pollutant and air pollutants are bad for children it follows that.... ?
I also never said that cigarette smoke wasn't bad for children.
Keep going Will, I have faith that you'll eventually address something I actually said.
If this does not give succor to those who want to expose people to second smoke without reservation, I don't know what does:
1. There is the potential for imminent harm in running a stop sign. Unless you are pleading special case for an asthma sufferer, your entire argument has been about cumulative harm. There is no cumulative harm for running a stop sign. There is no imminent harm in being exposed to second hand smoke.
2. It has been proven, beyond a doubt, what the worst possible outcome of running a stop sign could be. A car accident. There is an established cause and effect. There is no established cause and effect for second hand smoke. There is an increase in risk. An increase in risk is not a causation. It is simply a correlation.
3. The severity of worse possible case scenario from running a stop sign are astronomically more harmful than the severity of worse possible case scenario from being exposed to the second hand smoke off of one cigarette.
Anyone who loves to smoke should do so without endangering others.I remonstrate when I see adults puffing out with kids inside the car.Disgusting!
I personally think that the lawmakers and law enforcement officials should focus on the enforcement of the laws on drinking, texting, calls, seat belts before starting this crusade.
Good point, are police actually going to enforce this law? Is this how we want our tax dollars spent? Wouldn't we rather have them going after the criminal element of society, instead?
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