Now what are the odds any particular person's kids are going to get it? Not that high. I guess they just have to make a decision based on exactly how much pleasure it gives the person and how much of a risk it's worth.
In the end though you are right as it is for individual parents to make the right choice. Any allusion to government involvement I made was absolutely ill-conceived and in conflict with my otherwise consistent suspicion of government intervention.
Doctors are, as a group, as likely to be anti-smokers as anyone else. They also, as a group, believe what they read or are told by others in their field, and seldom have the time to do the research themselves. Neither is there a consensus in the medical community about the dangers of shs, regardless what you may have heard, and only 67% of doctors ever mention smoking to their patients.
Dr. Fernando Martinez, researcher and co-author of the EPA's Chapter 8 (the chapter dealing with kids, asthma and other respiratory diseases) and director of respiratory sciences at the University of Arizona said recently: "Like most people, I assumed tobacco smoke and pollution were the problem -- this was the politically correct way to think. But these factors turned out not to play a major role." And from the Lung Association of Canada: "Asthma is not caused by smoking. The reason asthma develops in one person and not another is not well known. Asthma tends to run in families, but not always."
It's a far greater risk for children to live in the inner cities, to have carpeting on the floor, to be poor--(why don't those selfish, abusive parents refrain from having kids in the first place?) My point is that blaming smoking for everything wrong with children or adults is not addressing the real problems so the real problems just get worse.
My siblings and I grew up in a smoking home and never had any health issues at all. We were all strapping, healthy, happy kids who were required to do our share of work and who played just as hard; my children grew up in a smoking home with no health problems; and my grandchildren are growing up in a smoking home. They are healthy, happy and active. If they weren't, I wouldn't smoke around them and I'm sure their parents wouldn't either.
We put risks in perspective as people used to do and I believe we'd all be better off if it was still done that way. We have a swimming pool. Instead of having it ripped out because it's a risk, we put up a fence (although all summer it stays open because the kids swim like fish). We have horses. Instead of our being scared to death of one of them falling off, they wear helmets (didn't help Christopher Reeve, but...). We have off-road Quadrunners and MotoCross bikes. It doesn't make them risk-free, but the whole family attended safety classes. We ski on occasion, ditto the safety classes. We smoke in our home. We open windows, have a few Smoke-Eaters around with Hepa filters, and visitors are generally surprised to discover we smoke.
This should never have become such a divisive issue, and it wouldn't have except for the massive amounts of money and power involved. There's a solution to every problem that doesn't trample on either side's rights, but anti-smokers aren't willing to discuss those solutions. That's one of the differences between an anti-smoker and a nonsmoker.