🚀 go-pugleaf

I am thinking . . .   :<)

charliew@hal-pc.org wrote:

> the people exposed to second hand smoke are spouses.  They can readily
> leave any time they wish.  They married the smoker knowing full well that
> the habit is bad.  They voluntarily had children with the smoker, knowing
> full well that their children would be exposed.  If it normally takes an
> adult smoker 30-40 years to suffer major effects from very high
> concentrations of smoke, you're telling me that children will suffer major
> effects in a few years from much lower concentrations.  I doubt that this
> is so.  Even if it is, do you insist that the parents are either incapable,
> unwilling, or abusive, regarding their children in this situation?  Where
> does big government end, and parental authority begin?

Throughout the last five decades, most parents who smoked did so in pairs,
e.g. both did.  I said nothing about being abusive, incapable, or unwilling
parents.  Most saw/see nothing wrong with smoking around their children, yet
all with a medium amount of common sense know smoking is stupid.  My
mom and dad were smokers, they were great people, and I hated smoke
when I was growing up.  My parents do not smoke in my house or around
my kids.  But while I was growing up - in predominantly poor areas with all
sorts of people who smoked - no one gave it a second thought.

Secondly, to assume a spouse may have a say in the matter tends to overlook
a whole bunch of research into problem areas of abuse.  We know people
do not live relationships for all the right reasons and that freedom is not as
easy as it sounds.  And it tends to overlook very simplistically that the
spouse
who leaves may be smoker also.

We have been passing legislation for decades about the restriction of polluting

common property - air.  For the most part, those regulations on industry have
done their work, as demonstrated in city after city in this country.  The
restriction
of smoking impact on common property -air - was a logical extension and long
overdue.  Have we gone overboard in some cases - yes.  But that is the cyclical

nature of both problem solving and politics.  Because of the country we live
in,
balances are formed and do take hold.

Sam McClintock
please reply to mac at ensanity dot com