Posted on 12/16/2005 10:57:51 AM PST by kingattax
Anti-smoking activists who are driving cigarettes from public places across the country are now targeting private homes -- especially those with children.
Their efforts so far have contributed to regulations in three states -- Maine, Oklahoma and Vermont -- forbidding foster parents from smoking around children. Parental smoking also has become a critical point in some child-custody cases, including ones in Virginia and Maryland.
In a highly publicized Virginia case, a judge barred Caroline County resident Tamara Silvius from smoking around her children as a condition for child visitation. Mrs. Silvius, a waitress at a truck stop in Doswell, Va., calls herself "highly disappointed" with the court's ruling.
"I'm an adult. Who is anybody to tell me I can't smoke or drink?" she said in an interview yesterday.
An appeals court upheld the ruling, but not before one judge raised questions about the extent to which a court should become involved in parental rights and whether certain behavior is harmful or simply not in a child's best interest. Mrs. Silvius says she complied with the decision by altering her smoking habits.
"My children know not to come around when I'm on the front porch with my morning coffee, tending to my cows or out in my garden, because I'm having a cigarette," she said. Still, she thinks this was not a matter for the courts because it was not proven that she posed a risk to her children's health.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Pong
If you smoke around your kids then you are an idiot but the courts need to stay the freak out of it
Want to bet that her cigarette habit was never an issue until the divorce?
Just wait for someone to agree and watch this thread take off. Smoking seems to be a touchy subject around here.
Well hey, its for the children, after all.
You are more than an idiot, you are knowing and willfully causing your child harm by smoking around them.
There was a good episode of Penn & Teller's Bullsh!t that showed the study used by second hand smoke opponents was flawed. That said, I don't smoke around my kids.
But I am sure you are smarter than all those scientists I paid for.
Aw, give me a break! Both my parents smoked around me and I just had a check up. At 48 I'm very healthy. Yes, I started smoking when I was 13 but QUIT when I was 17.
If a child has asthma I could see the health problem.
I don't allow smoking in my home and won't date a smoker simply because I don't like the smell.
These anti-smoking nuts have gone way around the bend IMHO.
I think it's time to forbid violent moovies in homes. And we should have a violence tax on all Hollywood moovies. It's for the children and we're just trying to save lives...
Never heard another word from her.
the UN study long ago disproved second hand smoke.
Being born in hospitol.
You see, your immune system "impresses" on bacteria when you are born - the bacteria in a ditch are actually good for you. The ones in hospitol are not.
According to Oxford University.
Both my parents smoked around me too, I'm a healthy 58. And Mom turned 92 this past July!
Bull. Where's the proof?
My parents smoked around me and I never even noticed it.
Seems like NOBODY noticed it until the nanny-state whiners began pushing their agenda.
Now the REAL idiots are conned into believing "you are knowing and willfully causing your child harm by smoking around them."
Merry Christmas !
You are more than an idiot, you are knowing and willfully causing your child harm by smoking around them.
That's a crock. My daughter was born into a smoking home. My hubby and I both smoked. I smoked before AND after she was born. And I even nursed her. (And NO! I didn't blow smoke in her face. I KNOW you are going to ask that NEXT!)
She grew up to be a beautiful young woman and now is married and has a babe of her own. She never had health problems. She and her hubby BOTH smoke! No one is sick. No one has asthma.
You have been blatantly mislead my friend.
High Five!
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