Should We Use the Force of Law to Ban Parents from Smoking in Cars that Carry Children?




smoking in a car Do you feel sick in your stomach when you drive past a car full of kids and cigarette smoke? Depending on your age, maybe, the sight of an adult puffing away will brings back the memories of a childhood in a car full of tobacco fumes.


People in the 1960s and 70s used to smoke everywhere: at home, at work, in restaurants, cinemas, grocery stores, airplanes, even in hospitals and schools! And, of course, they smoked in their cars regardless of whether their kids were sitting beside them or not.

Our parents were a smoking generation, and women smoked then even when they were pregnant or lactating. Car trips were full of cigarette smoke. Children exposed to smoke often complained of watery eyes, nausea, scratchy throats, fatigue, and coughs. However, puffing everywhere still was a fundamental right of adults.

Within the last 25 years the attitudes to smoking have undergone an extraordinary shift - from a culturally understood, accepted, and widely spread phenomenon to a barely tolerated social and personal problem. School, offices, restaurants and other public places have become smoke-free. We have travelled so far that, today, the sight of parents smoking in their car filled with kids is looked at as almost a child abuse.

As now the dangers of second-hand smoking are well-known, especially on kids’ health, many anti-tobacco activists in the U.S., Canada, Australia and some other developed countries are lobbying for banning adults from smoking in their cars when children are passengers. Just a couple of years ago, such an idea would have seemed a bit outrageous, but definitely not anymore. Recently, three U.S. states, Louisiana, California, and Arkansas, have adopted the legislation that makes smoking in cars with children illegal. The same laws have been passed in two Australia states, Tasmania and South Australia, and in the Canadian town of Wolfville, Nova Scotia.

On the other hand, a growing number of people, both smokers and non-smokers, are opposing a very idea of such a ban. A ban on smoking in malls or restaurants is one thing - those are businesses open for the public use and the state certainly has a right and a duty to keep all public spaces healthy and comfortable for everybody. But cars are not public, they are privately own, so should the government interfere with how we are going to use this private space? If smoking in cars with children is pronounced illegal, what would be the next step of the government? Children spend lots of time at home, so should we ban parents from smoking in the privacy of their own homes, too?

Another issue is that smoking has a lot to do with class, race, and culture. In many traditional societies, such as those of the First Nations, smoking is still highly accepted and widely spread. Among upper-middle-class professionals with a higher education, to the contrary, smoking is considered very unpopular. So, wouldn’t such ban on smoking in our cars be an attempt to use the governmental force to impose one group’s social norm on another?

Right or not, the issue of banning smoking in cars that carry children has hit the public agenda. And while politicians and the general public are debating the idea, a good thing to do is to stop smoking in your car, at least when kids are riding with you.

Jimmy Edwards

Quit Smoking Addiction


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Posted on November 30, 2007 
Filed Under Stop Smoking News

Comments

4 Responses to “Should We Use the Force of Law to Ban Parents from Smoking in Cars that Carry Children?”

  1. Sheryl on December 18th, 2007 11:42 pm

    As a parent and smoke free myself for almost 12 yrs, I can certainly relate…and I do remember that feeling of being trapped in a car with cigarette smoke while travelling to and from Sudbury and Toronto as a child while both parents smoked, windows rolled up, and the air conditioner recirculating the smoke filled air…
    HOWEVER…where does this stop..?
    This is what concerns me..this is my private vehicle..and now it’s yours and his and hers and the governments…
    I am not so sure I am 100% comfortable with this…not at all…

  2. Katrina on December 26th, 2007 10:31 am

    I have recently given up smoking again when I learnt of my pregnancy with my second child. We all are aware of the effects second hand smoke has on others and while it is our own decision to harm ourselves with this it is not fair to inflict it on children trapped in a car.
    The cancer gene runs through three generations of my family meaning we have an 80% chance of suffering grom it and my ex still smokes with my first child in his car. As there is no law preventing this i can do nothing to stop him.
    Everyone needs to wake up….. how would you feel if your child ends up with cancer and you did not do everything you could to stop it???

  3. Anonymous on January 11th, 2008 4:02 pm

    i think parents should not smoke

  4. Cu on June 11th, 2008 12:07 pm

    OMG i am only 11 yrs old and i hav 6 cigarettes a day! OK every1 that reads this

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