How do you feel about in-car smoking laws?
Posted on Jan 25, 2012 with Comments 4
My state just approved a law that bans people from smoking in their cars if children are present. You can be pulled over and fined if a cop sees you. I totally disagree with smoking on principle and I don’t like people smoking around kids, but I think that a law like this is extremely unconstitutional.
It allows the government to step in and tell people how to raise their kids. I understand that second hand smoke may be harmful to children, however it is the right of the parent to decide how to handle the health of their kids. This opens up the gateway for quite a few other laws as well.
What about obese children? Should we fine the parents for not feeding them properly? Should the same apply to children who are too skinny or are being fed a vegan diet (the Surgeion general recomends 4 oz of meat a day). What about parents who allow their kids sugar (diabetes is on the rise) or who allow their kids to drink soda (sugar, corn starch and caffeine are toxins to the system). Anything other than an organic diet is actually allowing posions into the body.
Why stop at physical risks? What about fining parents that don’t allow their children to wear the latest fashions? They’ll be teased at school and that will hurt their self esteem. What if the parents don’t get a computer for the kids? They’ll fall behind in their studies, and won’t get accepted into good schools. I know those examples are ridiculous, but how many ridiculous cases are pushed through every year in the court systems? All it takes is for someone to believe in it, and push it into law.
Congogalls, my other examples show other ways in which a parent can damage the health of their child. Improper diet and excess sugar leads to diabetes, that has been proven. Why is it okay to regulate smoking because it hurts the child, when not regulating something else that hurts the child as much (if not more)?
Droobey, then you agree we need to ban parents from feeding their kids anything except a government approved diet. After all, a snackers right doesn’t supercede the protection of a child.
It’s not the villages place to tell a parent how to raise a child. Keep your laws out of my family.
Jerrod Quitugua
Filed Under: Law & Ethics
One’s right to smoke does not super cede the protection of children.
I agree. Smoking in the car with your kids is bad judgment but why does this country have to make laws to substitute for people’s stupidity/laziness? I don’t believe in it. If I had my way gay marriage would be legal nationwide, pot would be legal and sex offenders would be subject to death penalty (so would CEO’s that embezzle from their employees) in every case.
Smoking underage is illegal. Secondhand smoke in a car is practically handing them a cigarette. It’s basically just extending the law to include circumstances.
Most of your examples include the government telling people how to spend their money. The ones that don’t are things that aren’t being forced upon the kids.
I believe that people’s right to smoke ends where others right to breath begins.
Some one should invent a smoking glass helmet to accommodate everyone.
If people want to pollute them selves with smoke, they should be allowed in a contained environment.