Comments on New York May Ban Smoking in Cars if Kids Are Present

Try and stop me!

who cares about asthma? weakling asthmatics.

My favorite part of my parents smoking in the front seat is a warm california day with the windows down (no AC in that '70s cadillac station wagon) and ashes blowing back into my eyes and mouth. Yum!
Never did get the asthma though. Woohoo!

My response to this article was: ban cars in NYC.

asthma is up there with autism, pedophiles, and obeesity in regards to how much I care about it in relation to how much press and concern there is about it.

Given the danger that second hand smoke presents to children, smoking around them at all is tantamount to child abuse.

oh and peanut alergies

let's get to some other news:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/18902.html

Am I the only one really tired of thinking about other people's children?

let's get to some other news:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/18902.html

@4

Now that is an initiative Dan can stand behind! (In both cases they're laws that wouldn't apply to him anyway)

Anyone whining "nanny state" is an idiot. You don't have any inherent constitutional right to smoke in public, period.

@6....funny, I still haven't known or even heard of anyone who died of secondhand cigarette smoke.

You idiot.

Alrighty, Dan. Next stop: If you have kids with you, you are not allowed to wait at a bus stop.

Hm, even some anti smoking advocates disagree on this policy:

http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/search?q=secondhand+smoke+car

@13 You apparently have not been paying attention.

Heart attacks were halved in Helena when an indoor smoking ban went into effect.

Non-smokers living with smokers have a 20-30% greater risk of lung cancer. Non-smokers who work with smokers have 16-19% higher risk of lung cancer. Source

And as each new municipality or state enacts new indoor smoking bans, the evidence keeps coming in.

There was also that really sad PSA where the smoker talks about how his non-smoking wife died of lung cancer.

Now if they would ban parents from filling their children's heads with that religion crap. Which has done more harm? second hand smoke or religion?

Which has done more harm? second hand smoke or religion?

Second hand smoke.

Since you asked.

In related news, asthma in young adults is rising fast, due to increased pollution in the US.

Funny, my grandma smoked with us in the car, my dad smoked with us in the car, when I was 16 I started smoking and didn't stop until I was 35. I never developed asthma.

Well, monkey, you're lucky then. My parents both smoked in the car with us kids, windows rolled up if it was under sixty degrees or so, smoke just blowing back in our faces if it was warmer. And surprise, I developed asthma. I can't get in their face about it, because surprise, they're both dead, (dad at 52, stepmom at 66) from - drumroll, please....hey, lung cancer! Cigarettes fucking suck - stop whining, cig junkies, switch to heroin and leave me out of it.

@ 22 -love you!

Actually Judah,

If you consider the Crusades and more recent developments such as suicide bombings religion has killed more people than second hand smoke.

Also, regarding asthma; it is a multiply determined phenomenon. It is the totality of envionmental and genetic factors that determines whether or not an individual gets it. Case in point, my mother smoked when I was small and I only had asthma symptoms when she moved me to Los Angeles.

@19: You're kidding right? I don't think even religious people deny the millions of people murdered in the name of religion since before tobacco was even discovered.

@13: I do.

@25: you'd have to use current death rates otherwise it is not a fair comparison.

if the state supplies heath care, then the state can mandate a certain modicum of healthy behavior.

So you can smoke at home, with the kids around, all you want? Chain smoke, day and night. But in your car it's illegal? And you think this is a good thing? Where do people spend more time, at home or in their cars? Explain the logic here, please.

door raises a good point. if you can ban it in a car with a kid why not the home with a kid? because the car is in public space?

It seems like New York law enforcement must have more important things to do than stop people from smoking in their cars. I suppose next they'll ban singing along to the radio because it might cause hearing damage.

I agree with 29. Look, the government is not your mom. How can you defend this law, but disagree with the government on the legality of pot?

You can't force people to be good parents. They're either going to be ... or not.

smoking at home is not by definition in a small confinded space. one could conceive a way to smoke at home that does not adversely affect the health of those in your care who have no choice but to be with you.

Great Idea! I wish the government would make all my decisions for me. I could really use an official to wipe my ass correctly after I take a dump.

#17 i call BULLSHIT on that study re: indoor smoking ban cutting heart attack rates in half. complete, utter BULLSHIT.

heart disease takes YEARS of abuse and neglect to develop; a six-month ban on indoor smoking cannot possibly instantaneously cut the number of heart attacks in half.

here's a quote from a scientist who debunked this study:

"Finally, the “immediate effect” should make anyone stop and question the connection the authors are asserting. There are few interventions in public health that have such an immediate impact. Even if all active smokers in Helena had quit smoking for at least a year, one would not expect to see such a dramatic effect.

The attempt to make claims about the effects of smoking bans based on this very weak ecological study raises disturbing questions about our ability to distinguish between sound science and wishful thinking."

fuck the nanny state!

this is NOT a case where the goverment is telling YOU have to live YOUR life. this is a case where the government is telling you that you cannot live your life in a way that abuses [the rights] of others. there are many laws like this having to do with cars, such as speed limits, that are not paternalistic, or similar to an official telling you how to wipe your ass.

@35! yeah! fuck science! and when a doctor says that if you quit smoking you will immediately notice health benefits? fuck her too!

Even as a smoker myself, I kind of wish we'd just outlaw cigarettes. I know it didn't work for booze, but I wouldn't be seeking out cigarette speakeasies, myself. There's also the whole tobacco lobby thing.

@37 Yeah, if you had actually read that person's post you would realize that they weren't saying FUCK SCIENCE...they were saying FUCK JUNK SCIENCE. Just because you read some "study" on the internet does not science make it.

@35 Then find me another factor that lasted exactly as long as the Helena smoking ban that would halve heart attacks. Smoking is far and away the largest factor when it comes to heart disease, followed closely by obesity. What the immediate effect says to me is that smoking is even worse for everyone around it than we thought.

#40 - the smoking ban *didnt'* halve the number of heart attacks. i didn't copy the full debunking of the study, but the number of heart attacks went from 7/month, to 4/month. this difference is well within the limits of statistical variation.

it was a sloppy study with no actual study participants. they simply looked at the number of heart attacks in helena during the smoking ban, saw the change, drew a graph, wrote a paper about it, and people ate it up because it was exactly what they wanted to hear, even though it makes no fucking sense whatsoever.

I'm a pretty liberal person, but I do resent when the government (usually the democrats) basically says to me: "You're too stupid to make your own decisions. We'll just make them for you."
There is an endless list of things the government "could" criminalize in order to "help people." If any possibility whatsoever exists that something might be unnecessary for living and "potentially" harmful, IN ANY WAY, it could be banned... alcohol, guns, meat, music, coffee, tattoos, etc.
Smoking is bad, I agree, but I'd like to think for myself, thank you. And I'd like to let others, even the stupid others, think for themselves too. Sometimes they're going to make bad decisions that hurt others. That's unfortunate, but it's reality. Banning smoking in cars with kids might "protect" 10?... 15? kids. And it will annoy thousands. It's silly, it's a waste of time, and it's a waste of resources.

@35 and @37 thank you. Fucking Junk Scence. Second hand smoke is a scam. Yes, don't light up in front of kids, any fucking idiot can realize the harmful developmental effects on infants and children. YOu want to complain that smoking is filthy and you don't want to smell like an ashtray? Great. But don't insult my intelligence and tell me that your going to die from being in the vicinity of cig smoke. I personally would rather suck down a cigerette than suck on exhuast fumes while sitting in traffic on I-5.
And people get lung cancer, regardless of whether or not they have been exposed to cig smoke. Do you think prostate cancer comes from smoking tobacco through the asshole?

Sorry guys I just don't buy it.

please excuse typos, I was in a rush

The difference between smoking and all the other possible crap to ban is that smoking is one of the only things that ALWAYS affects the people around you. If you want to drink coffee, eat meat, masturbate: whatever. All that shit goes into/happens to your body. You know where cigarette smoke goes? Into other people's bodies. And that sucks, big time, because all us non-smokers end up sounding like jackasses, or nannies, just because we want to protect OUR lungs from a choice we didn't get to make. Yeah, this decision takes away parents' choices. But it opens up a choice for their children, and isn't that important?

@44 By that same logic, we would require that parents NEVER feed children foods that would put them at risk of being obese, diabetic, heart disease or associated with some other physical disorder. After all, it's going in their bodies and it affects them.

Also, if you wanted to protect children from second hand smoke, then banning it in cars is ridiculous. The vast majority of kids are exposed to much more second hand smoke in their own homes. Ban it in the homes, then. Indeed, many kids in NY city never even ride in cars.

Hey, and while we're banning smoking in homes and feeding children junk food, then let's ban parents from putting babies in cribs on their stomachs as that increases the risk of SIDS. That, after all, affects the children and their bodies; not the parents.

Amen to this. Another one who spent 15 years sitting behind a lit cigarette, gagging.

So much anger, not enough reason.

First item: anyone who isn't responsible to not lock their child into a contained environment with a hazardous substance probably shouldn't be breeding.
It is, however, the obligation of a society to protect its children if it wishes to survive. So the law is understandable, if not a particularly wise precedent to set.

Second item: studies about second-hand smoke concentrate, exclusively from what I've observed, on people who live at least half of their day in a closed environment with smokers.
a.) this does NOT mean that walking past smokers is going to kill; it doesn't count as assault; it's not a threat to your health. Like the perfume some fools dunk themselves in or the chronic halitosis so many people seem to treasure maintaining, it is an unpleasant but TEMPORARY thing.
b.) for all of you "polluting my air" idiots? Turn off your cars. You see, the internal combustion engine most of you drive puts out more carbon monoxide in an hour of operation than my smoking does in a week (probably than I do in a month, but I'm being generous). So quit whining about the damage a smoker is doing to "your" air.

Third item: People need to be very careful about what they let lawmakers legislate. It's a lot hard to legalize something once it has been outlawed. Guard your gorram freedoms, because no one will ever GIVE them back, and the price you'll pay will be a steep one.

That's all I got.

Excellent end point Kaltros/47. Be VERY careful about giving away your liberties to the government. It's all too easy to make something illegal. Reversing those decisions are next to impossible.

wow. ok i must be the mom from hell. yes i do smoke, hell i must be more evil that a pedafile right?
my parents smoked for years and years around us. same with my husband(no he doesnt smoke) but his dad has chained smoked(still does)for years and noithing wrong with him.
i find this very funny. i am a good mom, hell i am also a air force wife..i have never done drugs, i dont brake laws, my kids all have food clothes and anything else they need. They also have a mom that stays home with them, not one that just drops them off at day care.
how about we start going after these parents that dont feed their kids, or leave them home a lone. these parents that use the welfare money to get high around their kids.
or like this mom a town down from me that forgot her infant son in the car for 9 hours in 90 degree or hotter heat. and he died- is she being put up on charges nope...
so yep why dont you tell people that actually take care of their family and pay the bills that they can do something in a house or car the own... yep god damn we are evil and this is why i am starting to hate our state