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.

[A Ruckus of Dogs]

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.

But most lung cancers are.

[jess35]

I can't stand being around people who drink. Should alcohol be banned from all public places?

The cigarette nazis need to understand that their little wants and desires are unimportant. If you don't like smoke, don't go to places that allow smoking. Is that so difficult? Why do you feel the need to make everyone in the universe change their behavior to accomodate YOUR petty little wants?

[Ramius]

The effects of smoking are the most expensive costs incurred by insurers.

That is absolutely not true. In fact it is intuitively ridiculous. Of all the cancers... lung cancer is pretty cheap. There is no practical treatment. Other cancers are orders of magnitude more expensive, mainly because they ~are~ treatable. Same with other sorts of organ failure. There are far more expensive ways to spend time as an older person without the relative cheap things supposedly endemic to smokers.

[BombHollywood]

Good Point. Although I do remember reading some type of article about a year or so ago that stated Chinese women are experiencing an alarming rate of lung cancer from working all day in smoky kitchens and around smoky stoves. The article failed to point out that smoking among chinese women has increase something like 10-fold in the last 20 years.

[cgbg]

I smoke cigars and several of my co-workers smoke cigarettes.

We had an interesting discussion with our boss this week.

She said to one of the group "you really ought to stop smoking".

My response: both of us smoke and I will compare our sick time with that of any of the non-smoking employees.

That conversation ended quickly. :-)

[Gabz]

Statistics can and are manipulated on a daily basis to fit any and all agenda.

Increased relative risks (RR) in epidemiology below 200% are considered statistically insignificant, and quite possibly just due to chance within the studies. Using an increased risk for lung cancer (since we are discussing smoking) would you be more inclined to worry about a 65% increased RR or a 19% RR from the ingestion and/or exposure of 2 different substances?

[absolootezer0]

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.

do you feed your kids bacon? bacon has carcinogens in it, and by your reasoning, giving it to them means "You are more than an idiot, you are knowing and willfully causing your child harm by smoking around them giving them bacon"

[eleni121]

Smokers generally pay higher premiums than non-smokers .

---

And well they should. I agree. That's where the sanctions should stay...in the hands of private insurance, not implemented by courts. Too bad the ACLU thinks otherwise. They want STATES to protect smokers' rights.

"The ACLU has found that state legislation is the best method for protecting workers' private lives. Two states have already passed comprehensive laws against lifestyle discrimination, and 21 other states have laws that provide partial protection. Our goal is the enactment, in every state, of statutes that protect all working Americans from discrimination based on their off- duty activities"

[misterrob]

I've smoked cigars for the last ten and while I notice the effects of a fat Cuban I can still do what I need to at the gym. Makes it harder though I will say.

[Gabz]

I saw post 45 and appreciate (most of) the sentiment (we still have to work on your definition of public places ;))

Merry Christmas.

[misterrob]

Grandmother on my Mother's side died of lung cancer at the age of 62. Smoked like a fiend. Her daughter, my Aunt, is in her 50's and has all sorts of health problems from her own smoking. Growth in her lungs, etc..

Your point is?

[Gabz]

See my post #70, Mike.

[Gabz]

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.

I did NOT inject another issue - you spoke of increasing costs and I explained where the increases are coming from, because you are looking in the wrong direction.

[misterrob]

We don't feed her bacon, no sips of wine, we keep the sugar reasonable, we make her sit in a car seat, etc..

[Publius6961]

If you smoke around your kids then you are an idiot but the courts need to stay the freak out of it

Well, Skippy, there are literally millions of us who grew up among adult smokers of legal substances who, without question, had a lot more of a native intellectual charge than you seem to, based on your classic scholarly response.

[eleni121]

Lung cancer is just one of the few cancers and illnesses by smoking.

"Coronary heart disease
Atherosclerosis - fatty deposits in the arteries which can lead to strokes, peripheral vascular disease, gangrene, and aneurisms
Buerger's disease, which can lead to gangrene.

Cancers Lung
Mouth, nose and throat
Larynx
Oesophagus
Pancreas
Bladder
Stomach
Myeloid leukaemia
Kidney.

Respiratory Chronic bronchitis, emphysema and other lung diseases
Recurrent infections in the airways
Damage and loss of efficiency in the lungs.

Other disorders Peptic ulcers (ulcers in the stomach and duodenum) - increase both in incidence and the time they take to heal
Tobacco amblyopia (defective vision) and other eye diseases such as cataract
Reduced fertility. "


Anyone smoking in the presence of others is contributing the other person's discomfort and health consequences and this is true especially for children who have no say in what is forced upon them.

[Gabz]

But being a smoker, as opposed to just being occassionally around smoke are 2 entirely different issues and that is the problem with many on this thread. It is mixing apples and oranges.

Does smoking increase a person's risk of certain illnesses? I don't know anyone who would deny it. However, the same can not be said about non-smokers being exposed to the smoke of others.

[eleni121]

I did NOT inject another issue

---

Yes you did. Why are you so insistent that you didn't...

You wrote:


"Take up your cost issues with lawmakers that force hospitals to treat illegals and other deadbeats that don't pay anything, causing costs to ogo up for ALL of us."

[Publius6961]

You are more than an idiot, you are knowing and willfully causing your child harm by smoking around them.

Having the inability to separate fact from opinion, I suspect, will forever limit you to whatever existence you presetly enjoy with such a sterling grasp of the scientific method.

You are aware, I must assume, of what the scientific method is, and that the largest scientific studies made in regards to SHS all conclude that there is no provable harm that can be found?

[Gabz]

Too bad the ACLU thinks otherwise. They want STATES to protect smokers' rights.

Actually I seriously have doubts the ACLU is worried about smokers.......in fact there is plenty of documentation where the ACLU has refused to even look at the issue of any such thing as "smokers' rights."

Because they are supporting worker's rights to privacy outside the workplace they are caught between a rock and a hard place in this issue.