Think of the CHILDREN!!!!!!

Unbelievable. With every public facility smoking ban, I’ve kind of said, “Fine, whatever, I’ll go outside.” I always thought, “At least I can still smoke in my car and at home.”

Not for long, should “Action on Smoking and Health” get their way.

“Children are the most vulnerable and the most defenseless victims of tobacco smoke,” Executive Director John F. Banzhaf III said. “They should be entitled to the same protection as adults.”

You see, I’m a parent. Obviously, as such, I am completely incapable of making intelligent health choices for my children. I can’t be trusted not to engage in an unhealthy, yet perfectly legal, habit around those I care about most. Especially considering that I don’t want them to take up the habit themselves. It’s completely unthinkable that I don’t actually smoke in front of my children, let alone in my house. Who could possibly imagine that I have the self-restraint to wait to smoke at home until they are in bed asleep, and even then, only do so on the patio outside of my house. It is, therefore, imperative that the government mandate that I follow such strictures.

Today, it is the subject of laws in three states regarding Foster Care laws and Custody Battles. Tomorrow, I won’t be able to smoke in or around my own home, property, vehicle or, frankly, at all. If I choose to engage in behaviour thats risks my own body for disease, illness, or injury that harms no one else, I have the right to do so.

Do yourself a favor and visit ASH’s website. You can learn all kinds of wonderful things like:

  • “Protect Foster Children:
    Click here to urge your state to protect foster children from secondhand smoke. “
  • Sue Big Tobacco Now:
    Click here to see how you can sue or join class action law suits against big tobacco companies.
  • Custody and Smoking:
    Click here to learn how to raise the issue of smoking in a child custody case.

  • Class Action Law Suits:
    Click here to learn about the many class action law suits against big tobacco companies.

You can also take a survey and win a prize. It must be a good prize because they have an animated arrow pointing to this one. You can get a free individual assessment of your cancer risk for which you must take a survey and get a chance to win a prize (this one looks like it was designed by the same folks who sell herbal medicine online).
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Oh my god. I’m looking through their website for purposes of writing this post and I’m just astounded by this site. It’s amazing. It’s like some sad combination of a V1Agra or C1@lis spam email/site and a cult. In order to learn “How you too can sue tobacco companies for wealth and fame” you must make a donation and join their scary little group. Check out the “Why Join” page. It’s like a RonCo informercial. At least their donation revenue is not going to something as unimportant as Web Design. I couldn’t hate this website more if they used the < blink> tag. Wow.
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Real scientific evidence for the dangers of second-hand smoke are false, fabricated or misrepresented. Yet, for the children’s sake, we must prevent all first-hand smoke just in case.

Where is the ACLU clamoring for my rights to engage in a legal activity without fear of interference and harrassment by the government? On a smoke-break?

Perhaps I can classify my cigarettes as an armament, a weapon, and therefore be protected under the second-amendment. Should I have a lit cigarette and be attacked, I can poke it in the eye of an attacker. I can blow smoke in his face and “put him at a higher risk of lung cancer, heart disease and SIDS.” If it’s so dangerous, so deadly, then it must be a weapon and they can’t take that away from me.

The best part of the article is this little snippet:

The smoking-at-home issue also sparked debate about whether such rulings will lead courts to become involved in such matters as parents’ making poor TV programming choices for their children.

My TV too? This has gone too far!

3 Responses to “Think of the CHILDREN!!!!!!”

  1. [...] · Filed under Counterpoint

    With all due respect to MisterBixby (Catastrophic Success)… Smoking stinks, and smokers stin [...]

  2. Mrs. Bixby (Not Her Real Name) says:

    Yes, you may be intelligent enough to not smoke around your children. You are also intelligent enough to not smoke in our house keeping that secondhand smoke away form your wife and children.

    ALOT of people are not that intelligent. Think of your family members that smoke. They do it sitting right next to their children. My dad used to smoke around me, too, when I was a kid. I hated it, but I had no right to make him stop. I used to wish he couldn’t smoke in front of me.

  3. [...] s blogs about the impending Nanny State starting with the anti-smoking laws I posted about here, only he did it better and much more concisely than I did. Also, less ranty. Go [...]

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