A new Welsh Government campaign calling on parents not to smoke in cars with children has been launched,
The Fresh Start Wales Summer Promise is being launched ahead of the school holidays and centres on parents’ making a commitment to keep their cars free from smoke.
Dr Tony Jewell, Chief Medical Officer for Wales, said: “Second-hand smoke contains more than 4,000 chemicals which can harm children’s health. More than 80% of cigarette smoke is invisible and has no smell – so the danger is worse than people might think. The car is a particularly dangerous place to smoke as it is such a confined space. The toxins within smoke linger in the car for hours so still pose a risk even if you only smoke when children aren’t in the car. Opening the window can actually make matters worse by blowing toxic smoke into the back of the car where children sit.
“The summer holidays are a time when families traditionally spend a lot of time together; whether going on day trips or travelling on holiday. But while families may be in the car more frequently, we don’t want to see a rise in children’s exposure to second-hand smoke. That’s why we’re encouraging people in Wales to make the Fresh Start Summer Promise; to make a fresh start for themselves and their family and keep their cars smoke free.
“We don’t want to tell parents what to do, simply arm them with the facts about smoking and the danger that it poses to children. We believe that parents want to protect their children and, once they are fully aware of the risks, they will choose not to smoke in front of them.”
Parents know best,
While I appreciate the desire to protect children from second-hand smoke
exposure in cars, I’m afraid that the suggestion to ban smoking in cars
occupied
by children represents an unwarranted intrusion into the privacy and
autonomy
of parenthood.
The autonomy to make one’s own decision about what risks to subject a child
to is not to be interfered with lightly. It should only be done in cases
where there
is a substantial threat of severe harm to the child.
Interfering with parental autonomy in a case where there is only minor risk
involved is unwarranted.
Thomas Laprade
Have any doctors or safety experts been consulted about the idea of asking drivers to go Cold Turkey when they get behind the wheel of a car with under-age passengers on-board?
Look up symptoms of Smoking Withdrawal. They include irritability (road rage?), inattention, anxiety, and sleepiness (sometimes without warning). On the other hand, smoking provides alertness, appetite suppression, stress relief, and a little safe distraction from driver boredom.
When we first hear of accidents caused by drivers going through withdrawal, will the officials responsible for the law be held accountable?
And, what is the justification? Do we have any medical records showing a child proven to have been harmed by smoke in a car, with windows open or not? IF any such records exist, was the cause of illness someone’s “smoking”? Or was it from secret non-tobacco adulterants in so many cigarettes…things like pesticide residues, dioxin-creating chlorine contents, radiation from use of certain fertilizers, or other non-tobacco substances? One cannot blame the Tobacco Plant for the effects of such an industrial concoction.
In any case, the most repulsive aspect of these “kids in cars” laws is that officials have proven themselves to not care at all about the health of kids. If they had a concern in the world, dioxin-producing chlorine pesticide residues and chlorine-bleached paper would have been banned from cigarettes decades ago because dioxins are especially harmful to children…and fetuses and pregnant mothers.
Truly concerned officials would have forbidden all the many untested, often toxic kid-attracting cigarette additives, and they would have banned the use of burn accelerants that keep cigs burning, and which also have caused many fires that have injured and killed both children and their parents. Officials, now pretending to be concerned, did not and Do Not even have the human decency to warn anyone about any of that.
These laws smell worse than all the ashtrays in Wales put together.
Whilst we might not blame the tobacco plant itself, society can and will blame parents exposing their children to chemicals. Any parent forcibly subjecting their child to passive smoking must accept full responsibility for their actions. Furthermore, if an addict is so addled that they cannot function then perhaps they ought not to be driving in the first place.