Smoking foes try to stop parents from lighting up

THE WASHINGTON TIMES ^ | December 16, 2005 | Tarron Lively

[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.

[misterrob]

http://www.lungusa.org/site/pp.asp?c=dvLUK9O0E&b=35422

[misterrob]

http://www.lungusa.org/site/pp.asp?c=dvLUK9O0E&b=35422

[RinaseaofDs]

'Natch

[misterrob]

What adults do on their own time is their own business. If someone wants to smoke then that's their choice. If like minded adults want to smoke then let em hang out in places where they can do their thing.

The effects of smoking around children have been studied enough for their to be evidence that it simply isn't good for them. Give people an out and they will take it by citing some other study that says that some aspects are inconclusive.

Common sense says that anything that you put into the air that has carginogens and other harmful chemicals that kids are going to inhale is probably something you shouldn't be doing at least not around them.

[TSgt]

I hate smoke and I would like to see it banned in all public places. I've even been called an anti-smoking nazi by many on this forum.

HOWEVER

What you do in the privacy of your own home is your business.

This is going too far even for me.

[eleni121]

If we're going to maintain a private health care insurance system insurers ought to be able to discriminate on the basis of pre-existing conditions and risky behavior on the part of their customers.

The effects of smoking are the most expensive costs incurred by insurers. We all pay for smokers' behavior and their kids are affected the worst since they have no way to stop what their parents are doing.

Should we give a liver to an alcoholic who need a transplant?

[misterrob]

Then pehaps you happen to fall into the percentage of people who don't have cancer and won't likely get it from smoking. Good for you. Are you going to try and state that just because you didn't suffer any affects or that your kids don't then the statistics are all lies being spread by the evil liberals?

You will believe what you want to believe which is your right to.

[TSgt]

See post #45

Merry Christmas :)

[Gabz]

Then I guess most of us in our 40s and older should be sickly or dead..........and I guess next fireplaces and woodstoves will be banned because of particulate matter....And we won't even discuss grills or frying.....

Good grief.

[TSgt]

See post #45

Merry Christmas :)

[Gabz]

Insurance companies already discriminate on the basis of pre-existing conditions and behavior of their customers.

The effects of smoking are NOT the most expensive costs incurred by insurers. Smokers generally pay higher premiums than non-smokers .

[SheLion]

Then pehaps you happen to fall into the percentage of people who don't have cancer and won't likely get it from smoking. Good for you. Are you going to try and state that just because you didn't suffer any affects or that your kids don't then the statistics are all lies being spread by the evil liberals?

You will believe what you want to believe which is your right to.

NEWSFLASH:   I've had cancer TWICE in my life followed by two major surgery's AND chemo and radioactive iodine treatments.

I had a team of Doctors each time.  They ask me if I smoked and how much.  Guess what?  All of them told me that my cancers were NOT caused from smoking.

Any other ideas????????????!!!!!!!!!!

[A Ruckus of Dogs]

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.

Some families are more susceptible than others. My cousin had a terrible asthma problem when her father smoked.

My friend's mother was a heavy smoker. Both her and her brother were born underweight.

[Ouderkirk]

Hey I've ben smokin' for 25 years and my lung feels great!!

[SheLion]

Merry Christmas :)

I ignored what you posted in post #45, but Merry Christmas just the same. :)

[TSgt]

LOL!

I usually go back and forth between you and Gabz about smoking. I thought you would like to know that I'm on your side this time about this issue...

Mike

[A Ruckus of Dogs]

As a marketing person, a conservative, and a non-smoker, this whole 'stop smoking around the kids thing' is the biggest whopper ever sold anyone, anywhere

Call it what you want, but kids do model their parent's behavior. Smoking does greatly increase the likelihood of lung cancer. Why would you want to model a dangerous habit?

(Don't misinterpet - government has no business telling you what to do in your own house. Smoking around your kids is a moral issue).

[eleni121]

"...force hospitals to treat illegals and other deadbeats that don't pay anything"

---

Sure. Agreed. Solutions for this urgent problem have been proposed but many states cannot even begin to tackle the problems...at least not yet. There is no political will to cut off funding to hospitals who care for emergency treatment for illegals or undocumented types.

That said, there is no doubt that everyone's insurance premium goes up because of smokers' health problems. You cannot hide this fact by injecting another issue into the discussion of rising health premiums.

[A Ruckus of Dogs]

Smokers are subsidizing non-smokers' insurance, not the other way around.

Hmmph .. we should encourage more of it and get our rates lowered.

[armydoc]

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.

I knew a guy that played "Russian Roulette" once. Nothing happened. Therefore, I conclude that "Russian Roulette" is not dangerous.

Absurd? Well, that's what happens when you try to prove something using an anecdote. We can have a legitimate argument about the evidence concerning the risks of second-hand smoke. Anecdote doesn't cut it. In my business, I see smokers every day. Ninety percent of them understand that the risk to their health, and accept it. Fine. Ten percent, though, think the whole thing is a "scam". They have smoked for twenty years, and nothing bad has happened yet. Or they had a grandfather that smoked until he died at the age of 102. The concept of "relative risk" just doesn't equate with them. I expect better from the normally intelligent FReeper community. No, second hand smoking is not the same as smoking. But don't make yourself look foolish by claiming your anecdote trumps science.