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Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Suffer the Children?

Posted by on December 20 at 10:59 AM

Maybe so. The BBC reports that smoking bans may be harmful to children…

Smoking bans in public places lead to children being exposed to higher levels of tobacco smoke at home, a study by University College London shows. Experts found that smokers were more likely to light up at home if prevented from doing so in cafes and bars.

The researchers favoured designated smoking areas over an outright ban, which they claim displaces the problem.

Opponents of the smoking ban in Seattle sent me the link to the story. My response? Well, it’s odd. I don’t want to see kids suffer, but I don’t think it’s fair for smokers to say, “Hey, let me smoke in bars and clubs or I’m going to go home and do harm to my own children.” I would hope that even smokers, struggling with their addictions, would be able to view their own children as something more than hostages. But, alas, that may not be the case.

That’s not an argument for doing away with the smoking ban, though. It is an argument for sterilizing smokers.


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Hmm...my mother smoked. Does that mean she should have been sterilized Savage? Are you prepared to work, you know, 12 months out of the year?

Also, I'd like to direct you to this. Perhaps you missed it.

No, Dan, you took it completely the wrong way. They're saying that some parents who previous went out and did their thing, shut out from being able to relax with a smoke in public venues, may then choose to do so at home after a ban is implemented, which then increases exposure of those in their household to cigarette smoke.

Remember how Savage's notorious logical inconsistencies got him shit kicked on O'Reilly? And then remember how he stubbornly refused to learn his lesson?

I understood the piece, Gomez. But once smoking parents are made to understand that smoking in their homes does real physical damage to their children—lifelong damage—they should do the decent thing and step outside when they want to smoke.

I didn't think smoking parents were consciously holding their children hostage. But I do think that anti-ban activists are.

O'Reilly is the King of Logical Inconsistencies, as well as making up his "facts" out of pure cloth. He produces more bullshit than Pamplona has seen in a decade.

If you have a link to the Savage interview (where you could back up your claim, which, like your hero Bill, you probably can't), I'd like to see it, as I missed it when it was first aired.

Aren't smokers sterilizing themselves?
(Women who smoke take longer to conceive. Men who smoke have a lower sperm count than non-smokers, and their semen contains a higher proportion of malformed sperm, not to mention the higher impotence rate among male smokers versus male nonsmokers.)

Bill's no hero Dave, which made the ass ripping all the more painful. I saw it on TV, I don't have a link to it. Find it if you want. Dan also wrote about it in his column, I think.

No one is holding anyone hostage. Thoughtless people are thoughtless people whether or not there's a smoking ban in place. Parents of sound judgment do step outside and smoke away from their children.

And sterilizing smokers doesn't solve the problem if they already have kids once a ban takes effect. Neither does stereotyping every single parent who smokes as a terrorist to their own children and suggesting we sterilize every single one. Narrow minded much?

Wow, Dan I think you took it way too far. What about all of us who are held hostage by all of you car-driving gasoline junkies? Ever had to walk off the Bainbridge ferry? Even my non-stop smoking European guests were appalled at the car exhaust in Seattle and Bainbridge.

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