Tuesday - December 15, 2009

I understand the reasoning which isn’t bad.  Parents face ban on smoking in front of children.

Tricky subject here.  On the one hand, nobody wants a govt. sticking their nose into the private home. But, coming from a background and an age when smoking was the norm and smokers weren’t made to feel like outcasts, I have to say my early habit that lasted 21 years and ended in a tumor might have been avoided had things been a lot different back then.  Maybe if my mom weren’t a smoker. Or aunts and uncles and family gatherings where most adults happily lit up.

Maybe I wouldn’t have lost a brother to lung cancer.  Those thoughts do trot through my mind.  There have been a number of times over the years when something came up and my immediate thought has been, I have to share this with Dave. And suddenly realize I can’t.  Or, wish I could share this. He’d get a kick out of it.  Smoking was grown up, it was portrayed as somewhat glamorous and who didn’t want to be that.

So I understand the govt. watch dogs trying to step in and halt the process.  Sometimes education isn’t enough or it’s ignored altogether.  So I understand.
But at the same time, it makes me nervous.  It is intrusive.  Catch 22 for someone like me who has always believed that The End Justifies The Means.
Yeah well, now I have to stop and think about that.  Maybe it should be the end sometimes justifies the means.

How about booze?  Now there’s a topic for ya.  Kids see their parents drinking and some kids even see their parent a bit on the tight side, if the papers are to be believed.  Just where should the line be drawn to help ppl and especially a younger generation?  What other bad habits can a govt. find within a family?

(article shortened, see the link below for all)

A ban on parents smoking in front of their children is being considered by the Government.

By Andrew Porter, Political Editor

Stopping parents lighting up at home, or in cars, if they are with their children will form part of an aggressive new anti-smoking campaign to be launched by ministers this week.

The Government will also announce it plans to go ahead with a ban on all advertising on tobacco packaging. That measure would mean in future cigarettes could only be purchased under the counter in packets. They would be marked only with government health warnings.

At the heart of the drive is a new commitment to halve the number of adults who smoke by 2020. The current Department of Health target, which they claim to be on target to meet, is to reduce smoking prevalence to one in five people by next year.

To reduce that to one in 10 a series of measures designed to stop young people taking up the habit will be unveiled.

Central to it will be an aggressive marketing campaign that aims to persuade parents to stop smoking in front of impressionable young children.

Other measures will include:

- a commitment to continued real-terms increases in tobacco duty to keep the price of cigarettes rising;

- more stringent implementation of guidelines on smoking in films and television programmes;

- new controls on the marketing of tobacco accessories;

- further investment in accessible and effective NHS “stop smoking” services; and

- imposing a total ban on smoking and the sale of cigarettes within the London 2012 Olympic site.

A similar ban on parents smoking is in place in several American states and cities. Other US authorities have made smoke-free cars and homes a condition of allowing people to foster children.

In Britain, calls to ban parents smoking in cars have been led by Professor Terence Stephenson, President of the Royal College of Paediatric Health.

He said recently: “Why on earth would you light up in your car whilst your children are sitting quite happily in the back? On the assumption that you wouldn’t pass the packet round and invite the kids to light up, why make them breathe tobacco smoke at all?

“You can’t inflict this on your colleagues at work any more. Why should we treat our children’s health as a lower priority than our employees?”

Labour will be accused by some of introducing more “nanny state” rules.

Prof Stephenson added: “If you act to make people safer, you get accused of introducing the nanny state. If you let people make their own decisions, you get accused of neglect.

“It’s extremely sensible, common sense - but is seen by some as too draconian and the trickling of nanny state rules again.”

GO HERE FOR MORE ON THIS SUBJECT

Posted by peiper     on 12/15/2009 at 01:40 PM   
Filed Under: • Daily Life • Government • Health and Safety • Nanny State • UK •  
• Comments (14) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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