Posted on 11/08/2005 12:52:05 PM PST by ShadowDancer
Bill Could Ban Smoking In Car With Kids
Studies Show Secondhand Smoke Impairs Respiratory Health
POSTED: 11:14 am EST November 8, 2005
LANSING, Mich. -- Smoky car rides to school may soon be illegal.
Using a lit tobacco product in a vehicle with a person under 18 would be a civil infraction under a bill to be formally introduced Tuesday by Rep. John Moolenaar, spokesman John Whetstone said.
"We've all seen it on our streets and highways, children in the back seat, smokers in the front, and your heart just goes out to those kids," said Moolenaar, R-Midland.
The bill would allow police officers to pull over drivers who are smoking with children in the car, Whetstone said. A fine for the infraction would be set by the courts.
Several studies indicate that secondhand smoke causes lung cancer in adult nonsmokers and impairs the respiratory health of children.
An estimated 150,000 to 300,000 children under 18 months of age get pneumonia or bronchitis every year from breathing secondhand tobacco smoke, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
There is a right to be secure in our persons and effects. That means no entering our homes without probable cause to believe we've actually committed a crime, backed up with a properly executed warrant specifying the extent of the search and what you're searching for. If you want to call that "privacy", then fine with me!
ping
Depends if they're minorites.
So? I was one of those kids. Lungs clean as a whistle. I see my neighbors pull up to the curb and open the doors, and waves of profanity roll out--and the car is packed with kids. I'd rather raise my kid on secondhand smoke than secondhand vulgarity.
Multiple causation.
Actually, the most sensible thing I have ever seen on asthma was a study by Oxford that associated it strongly with childbirth in hospital. Very very interesting.
My point is, and I may be mistaken, that ones car is often viewed similarly as one's home. It seems to be a backdoor way to begin to legislate more and more activities in one's house. Is the police man going to need a search warrant? No, he'll just see a guy smoking with kids in the car.
Since we are associating ones car and ones home, if a police officer sees you smoking crack through your living room window from the street, he doesn't need a warrant to enter and arrest you.
Achtung! Schnell!
"Bill Could Ban Frowning, Scowling or Grumbling in Car with Kid, Even If Kid is Complaining, Crying or Whining"
I get you, but we slid down that slippery slope before the Constitution was drafted: if someone sees you doing something illegal, yer busted--the fourth amendment doesn't apply. Same goes for your house, if someone sees you committing a crime in front of the window.
The apt comparison would be if your car had tinted windows, and cops pulled you over to see if you were smoking with kids in the car. That would be unconstitutional. But the asininity of the law doesn't have much to do with privacy anyway: it's a case of mandating behavior some politico wants, without any scientific basis at all. It's pure fascism.
If we lived in a free country, we'd at least demand proof before tolerating such a law. And even then, before the law could be passed, someone would start marketing a smokeless ashtray for cars, and Cadillacs would start installing fans that use laminar airflow to keep smoke in the front seat and direct it out the windows.
It might be unfortunate that the kid has to show up at school smelling disgusting (then again, he may not mind), but it hardly seems like something to legislate.
Someone please airdrop this Michigan commie Rhino into North Korea. We have enough of these moonbat Rhinos here in Ohio.
Rush called this one 10 years ago.
I grew up that way.....my parents always smoked in the car and living in Western New York meant rolled up windows. I have adult asthma.
Your parents didn't have the ability to partially roll down a car window?
Car exhaust is more dangerous than second hand smoke. It is directly related to the increase of asthma in children. Children ride in vehicles much more frequently than they ever did before Mommy joined the workforce. They are subjected to car exhaust from their own family vehicle and from the dramatic increase of cars on the road numerous times per day. There was a British study done that showed a high increase in cases of asthma in children who lived near highways.
What about exhaust fumes?
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