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Friday, December 16, 2005

Anti-Smoking Banshees

Posted by on December 16 at 11:28 AM

Okay… at the risk of giving Dave Meinert aneurism I’m going to link to this story.

Anti-smoking activists who are driving cigarettes from public places across the country are now targeting private homes…

I read that and thought, my goodness, that’s just wrong. Even I, the ultimate anti-smoking nag, thinks people should be able to do what they like in their own homes. Public places? Smoking should be banned—public places are shared spaces, and smokers shouldn’t be allowed to force everyone else to either smoke or leave. But if people want to kill themselves in their own homes—fine, whatever. Light up. Destroy your skin, your circulation, your ability to get it up, your looks, your internal organs, your teeth, your gums, and your lungs. And if you fall asleep and a lit cigarette falls on the couch or floor, burn down your house. Hope you get out in time.

But then I read on…

— 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…. “If a child suffers from asthma or some sort of problem, the courts shouldn’t even have to be told to [step in],” Mrs. Silvius said. “That should be the parent’s better judgment. But my kids aren’t sick. If there’s no health issue, it isn’t the court’s place to say someone can’t do something that’s perfectly legal, just because the other spouse doesn’t want them to.”

Now I’m torn.

As a child I would have liked nothing better than for the courts to step in and order my parents—both smokers—to stop smoking around their four young children. My mother was pretty good about smoking on the porch on those few occasions when she smoked around us. But my father—oh, my father—would smoke at meals, in cars, in the apartment. I can’t say for sure that his smoking gave me asthma but it sure as hell made it worse. And unlike the hypothetical parent with better judgment that Mrs. Silvius mentions, my father did not stop smoking around me or my brother Eddie, also an asthmatic—and this was way, way back in the dark ages, pre-inhalers, when an asthma attacks could mean four or five hours of misery and panic and, frequently, an expensive trip to the ER.

I used to fight with my father about his smoking—I would refuse to eat if he lit up at breakfast or dinner, and he would blow up. I sometimes think our conflict over cigarettes did more damage to our relationship than my homosexuality. If I could have taken him to court to stop him from smoking in our apartment, I would have.

So, for the record… knowing the health consequences that children of smokers suffer (“…World Health Organization figures [indicate] babies are at five times greater risk of [crib] death if their mothers smoke. Children also have a 20 to 40% increased risk of asthma if they are exposed to tobacco smoke, and a 70% increased risk of respiratory problems if their mother smokes.ā€¯), it seems entirely reasonable to me to ban smokers from being foster parents, at the very least. You shouldn’t take children out of a dangerous environment and put them in another. And in a custody dispute it seems reasonable that a smoking parent to lose a few points to a non-smoking parent. If the smoking parent is the better parent, custody should go to the smoking parent. But if all things are equal between a smoking and a non-smoking parent in a custody dispute, then smoking should be counted against the smoking parent and custody should go the non-smoker.

No doubt thinking people don’t have a right to harm their children placed in their care makes me a fascist. But if I’m a fascist, Dave, what is someone who values cigarettes more than she does the health of her own children? Abusive.


CommentsRSS icon

Hm, then I wonder what you think about this story from Edmunton in Canada:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20051216.wxsmokingbus16/BNStory/National/

People are on a bus and smoking and affecting no one but themselves. I don't smoke, for the record, but I disagree with the bans in public places.

I think that if you drink you should have your kids taken away too. It causes arguments and can damage your relationships more than homosexuality.

Also if you're a shitty driver you should not be allowed to drive with your kids. Also you should not be able to allow your kids to go swimming.

Fuck it, seriously, this retarded post from Dan Savage is my last straw with the stranger. It's appalling how you people have embraced this nanny state, freedom hating direction that liberals are moving in and if you keep it up, the rest of us moderate democrats won't have a leg to stand on in 2008.

I know, you've heard it before, you'll hear it again, (rightly) you won't let it affect the content of your paper, but I am done with this moldy ol' rag.

Well, Anderson, we're sorry to see you go. But the paper is more than my idiotic opinions, as anyone who actually reads the paper is aware. But if you want to stomp off because of one blog post I've written, well, bye-bye. But we're coming out swinging against the lap dance ban, so... we're not 100% for nanny state stuff.

wow. I wonder if Anderson's dad beat him and then blew cigarette smoke in his face. Have fun reading the Weekly, jackass!

B.D., the smoking bus is a creative workaround. Although I strongly support the new public smoking ban in bars & restaurants in Seattle, I actually wouldn't object to similar smoking busses here. I don't care if people smoke, so long as they don't subject others to their second-hand smoke (with its well documented health risks). So long as the bar is smoke free, and non-smoking patrons and employees are not subjected to second hand smoke, then the smoking bus is really nothing more than an elaborately enclosed outdoor smoking area, which is not a bad idea, given the severity of Edmunton winters.

Not to be too technical here, Anderson, but if you do drink or drive shittily (is that a word?) to the point that it endangers your children they will be taken away (or more realistically you will be taken away from them to jail, or have your car taken, etc.)
It's not a "nanny" state you jackass, it's protecting those who can't protect themselves.
But realy, fuck the kids man. If I can't eat 'em or fuck 'em might as well not even consider 'em.

My dad was (still is) a chain smoker. It is disgusting what some kids have to put up with. I remember the worst places to be were the backseat of the car (driver's side) and sleeping on the couch, waking up to his chain smoking (so bad I would cover my face with a blanket). He refused to leave the house to smoke.


But one of the worst places to be was the bathroom after he had been in there for several minutes..combination of bathroom smells and cigarettes..the grossest thing on earth!!

While I agree that parents who smoke around their kids are assholes and it probably constitutes a kind of child abuse, the idea of legislating this is stupid and dangerous.

Furthermore, people who choose to spend their time on this might want to take a look at the million other issues that deserve our time and tax dollars.

Want to do some good in the world, Dan? Spend your time and proto-celebrity on something else. Like ridiculing people in your column.

Smoking in public affects people who happen to be around the smoker. Since smoking has been irretrievably deemed as hazardous to one's health, those unlucky people who happen to be around the smoker will suffer the hazard too. Probably not as much. I work in a laboratory where the environment is constantly being measured and tested so that the hazardous chemicals necessary for research do not injur the people nearby. Why should you smokers get a break when scientists do not? All you smokers who whine about not reading the Slog anymore because of Dan's and others' arguments against public smoking should find a new argument that wins. Your old ones are no longer working, thank god.

Sheila, The PUBLIC smoking ban is, despite the ridiculous 25 foot rule, a good thing in the end. Legislating what people do in their private homes...not so good. Probably unconstitutional, definitely unenforcable, and just plain wrong. Shouldn't the courts be responsible for deciding if you're abusing your kids?

As for not reading the SLOG, Mr. Savage and the Stranger staff piss me off on a regular basis, but that's their job. I have no plans to stop reading the Stranger.

It's not a "nanny" state you jackass, it's protecting those who can't protect themselves.

Really? In bars, you have to be 21 to enter. Adult. Bars and taverns should have the right to host smokers if they want to. Private property owners should be allowed to do whatever they want to on their own property.

The argument that the ban protects those who can't protect themselves just doesn't fly.

Dan Savage is free to patronize nonsmoking establishments, and he knows it. Instead, he wants to label private property as "public space." A private property owner has the right to throw anyone off his property -- that's not exactly the same thing as strolling in a park. A private property owner also has the right to hire and fire whomever he wants, and to allow whatever he or she wants on the premises.

I'm so sick of reading the level of intellectual dishonesty on this issue in this paper. It's truly alarming how people have lost their ability to rationally think on 901. I agree with Anderson -- the pro-ban articles in the Stranger have made me lose respect for the paper. It doesn't stand for or value personal freedom any more, just selfishness and suburban values. They are in sync with all the SUV owners who voted for the ban while they pollute the city air so badly I cannot walk to work in real public spaces -- the sidewalks.

The Stranger has completely lost its street creds on this issue and completely alienated those people who would be most likely to respond to the paper by selfishly imposing their version of the suburban Hitler state upon all of us.

My parents both smoked, and they were good decent people, and good to us. They weren't sitting at home getting drunk and smashing things up and abusing us. If you pro-ban people want to call my parents "abusive" you can go fuck yourselves.

Why don't you propose banning the use of alcohol at home, Dan? Drunks are a lot more abusive and dangerous parents than smokers.

But you drink, don't you Dan? A ban might affect your "lifestyle" (sob) and your precious lungs.

You're such an asshole on this issue, as are your writers, who have come up with zero legitimate arguments for the constitutionality and morality of the ban.

Legislating what people do in their private homes...not so good.

I agree with this statement on its face, Joe, but then have to think about how improper care of children is handled. The state absolutely steps in if a parent or guardian abuses the kid. How can they do this other than intrude on a person's private life?

In the case of smoking in one's own home with children: how can a public hazard stop being a hazard as long as it's done in private? Especially for those children who have asthma. This is especially poignant as the rate of children with asthma is growing -- albeit from god knows what. It's like tying a plastic bag over the head of every one of those kids and hoping that s/he will get enough oxygen and not die. I had an almost identical experience as Dan did growing up asthmatic in a family chock-full of exuberant smokers. I loved them but they were killing me.

It doesn't make me comfortable going against the quote above, but how else to deal with kids? Tax breaks for parents who don't smoke? Tax breaks for children who have clean x-ray pics of their lungs?

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