I want all hellions to quit puffing the hell fume in God’s clean air.
- Carry Nation
Oscar Wilde: ‘Do you mind if I smoke?’ Sarah Bernhardt: ‘I don’t care if you burn.”
- Sarah Bernhardt
No one who’s read my writing on the subject over the years should have any question about where I come down on the issues of smoking and second-hand smoke. To recap for those of you new to the subject here, it can be summed up thusly: My right to breath clean, untobaccofied air trumps your “right” to smoke. Period. End of story. Thank you. Good night. Game over. Drive home safely. Any questions?
Having grown up being force-fed secondhand smoke by a father who smoked (and in northern Minnesota, you just don’t roll down the car window in mid-winter, knowhutimean??), I’ve often wondered what sort of long-term damage I might have incurred. It’s too late now, of course. Whatever damage might have been done has long since been etched in stone, but what upsets me so much about the issue of children and secondhand smoke is that children seldom have a voice. More often than not, they’re forced to breathe secondhand smoke by a parent who smokes. The primary concern, it seems, is feeding their addiction, NOT the well-being and health of their child. Of course, I grew up in the ’70s, when smoking was still pretty much de riguer and still considered cool. Thankfully, that has changed for the better over the years…though I won’t be happy until a smoker has to fly to Bratislava or Phuket in order to light one up.
That secondhand smoke is dangerous- perhaps as dangerous the second time around as the first- is really no longer in doubt. Though there are deniers out there, just as there are those who deny the reality of global climate change, there’s a growing preponderance of evidence indicating that if you’re subjected to secondhand smoke, you might as well be lighting ‘em up yourself. Now comes a study indicating that secondhand smoke may contribute to a higher risk for mental health issues in children. As if we really needed additional incentive to look after children, right? The reality, though, is that far too many parents place their addiction to tobacco over the health and well-being of their children. It’s not that we’re talking about bad parents here; that’s simply the insidious nature of addiction.
Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health looked at the data generated by a 2007 national health survey, analyzing the responses of the parents of guardians of more than 55,000 children ages 11 and younger from throughout the U.S. They found that children who were exposed to secondhand smoke were twice as likely to develop so-called neurobehavioral disorders — including learning disabilities, ADD or ADHD, and conduct or behavior disorders — than were children who lived in smoke-free homes.
“We estimate that 274,000 cases of the most common neurobehavioral disorders could have been prevented with smoke-free homes,” said Hillel Alpert, ScM, a senior research associate at Harvard and one of the study’s authors.
When current estimates indicate that anywhere between 4.8 and 5.5 million children live in homes where they exposed to secondhand smoke, the question becomes what we as a society propose to do about this. On the one hand, you have the “small government” crowd who want government out of what they consider personal and/or private issues. The problem, though, is that if we allow things to continue as they are, ALL of us will eventually pay for our indolence and laissez-faire approach in the form of higher health insurance rates and health care costs.
On the other hand, you have people like me who would love nothing better than to disincentivize smoking to the point where it becomes so inconvenient and impossible to afford that no one will bother lighting up. To my way of thinking, this approach has a couple of advantages. One, severe and onerous taxes on cigarettes will provide government with a revenue stream that can be used for anti-smoking programs, health care for smokers looking to quit, or any number of other anti-smoking efforts. Two, eliminating the exposure of children to secondhand smoke will undoubtedly reduce the incidence of adverse health effects- ADD, ADHD, and conduct/behavioral disorders- which will in turn reduce the cost to society as a whole.
Yes, I understand the civil liberties issues in play…but at what point are civil liberties trumped by public health concerns? Does (and/or should) one’s “right” to smoke continue to be the Prime Directive? Given what we now know about the deleterious effects of secondhand smoke, why would we continue to place the “rights” of smokers above the health of our children? There’s simply no logic or reason available to argue for why this should be allowed to continue. Of course, compliance and enforcement may well present some thorny and difficult issues, but if we care at all about our children, we simply cannot allow parents to continue subjecting their children to secondhand smoke.
I often wonder what effect my childhood exposure to secondhand smoke may have had on my long-term health. It was the ’70s, of course, and no one then really gave secondhand smoke much thought. Hell, when I first started flying you could still smoke on airplanes. Whatever damage may have been done has long since been done, and I can’t change that. What we can change, though, is our present…by making certain that we place the health and wellbeing of our children first.
I’ll end this with a thought that I think really needs and deserves to be part of the conversation. If you smoke around your children, what you’re engaging in is child abuse. By placing your addiction over the health and wellbeing of your children, you may not be beating or physical abusing your children, but I would submit that your behavior is prima facie child abuse nonetheless.
Think about it….
