Smoking in Cars Carrying Children

Joe_Horner

Tiddlywinks wrote: »

The change in legislation will NOT deny drivers access to their drug of choice... it will simply mean they have to pull over and step out of the car or use nicotine substitutes for longer journeys.

There is no denying that second hand smoke does kill... parents who smoke in confined spaces where their children inhale the fumes should be ashamed of themselves.

They choose to smoke - their children don't have the luxury of choice... they just have the carcinogens forced upon them.

You obviously don't smoke, do you?

It's an addiction - physical and psychological.

Nicotine replacement supplies the physical side, but doesn't touch the psychological. If it did then it'd give a 100% "cure" rate, which it doesn't even come close to.

As an addict, you don't get a "choice" over when the craving hits. If you've just passed a services and it's an hour to the next thanks to slow traffic then you just get more and more stressed as time ticks by. You're an addict and you can't control that.

You're also an addict to something which (whether or not it should be) is, and has been, legal (and nicely taxed, thak you) for the entire time you've been using it.


If you can't understand the above then, frankly, you're in no way qualified to have an opinion on the possible effects.

Joe_Horner

Domino9 wrote: »

They would save more than 11 Billion if no one smoked (or used other forms of tobacco)

Really? The very highest estimate to date of the direct (ie: NHS) cost of smoking is around £5 billion.

There are higher estimates out there including wildly varying figures for things like absenteeism from work (which alcohol creates FAR more of incidentally).

But the £12 billion to the treasury is only the "direct" revenue as well. If you include income tax for workers in the tobacco industry and not having to pay many of them jobseekers if those jobs disappeared. The net result is very uncertain figures if you want to argue either way, but on the known direct figures which can be accurately measured, smoking gives at least a £6 billion surplus to the treasury.

That will have to go on your tax bill somehow.

Jamie_Carter

sniffles wrote: »

I don't think it is right that any government should intervene, but are smoking parents bad parents?

You seem to suggest that they are.

Most of my generation smoked and we still managed to produce surgeons, engineers etc.. It was after the war, and few of us owned cars anyway. We smoked everywhere, even in hospitals, so no, leave us alone.

I would add that I would not smoke in a car with anyone, but that's my own choice.

Go away government..what next? My living room?

And I presume there is a reason for that??

londonTiger

we should make a law preventing mums and dads arguing loudly in front of children too.