:rolleyes:
I’m sorry, you wanna kiss my what?
[Moderator Hat ON]
Virgowitch, the issue of what js_africanus should or should not kiss would probably be better dealt with in the BBQ pit. All of you, cool it.
[Moderator Hat OFF]
This has been interesting so far, but I think that there’s a variable here that isn’t being given the proper weight.
That variable is genetics. All things that can go wrong with the human body are related directly to genetics and heredity; cigarettes, fatty foods, alcohol, and all the other assorted toxins we toss into ourselves are merely contributing factors to our eventual demise. This explains the dock worker who lives for 90 years on black coffee, cigarettes, red meat and whiskey, and also explains the vegetarian athelete who drops dead at 30 from a heart attack. It all depends on how the body deals with these toxins. Granted, there are formulaic calculations and general ideas about good health, and no one is attempting to dispute the positive effects of a balanced diet and exercise have on the human body, but nothing is absolute when dealing with humanity, nothing.
Getting back on point, I do believe that smoking around your children is a form of child abuse. More than that, it’s damn stupid, HOWEVER…The choice is yours. Tobacco is legal at this point, and, like red meat, isn’t all that good for you, yet the freedom of choice should abound in this case, if you feed your children red meat and smoke near them, they may, depending on their genetics, develop problems because of that. Or, they may not, hence the variable.
Smoking is a damn foolish and completely obtuse activity in which to engage, but I will defend with my meager intellect and all the strength I can muster, your right to kill yourself just as rapidly as you choose.
Thin the heard, Smoke.
I personally have no sympathy for children in that environment, not that it’s their choice, but it is the choice of those people entrusted with the care and maintenance of the child, and as such, unless the person is mentally retarded or otherwise unstable, the course they take is above reproach, and, more importantly, none of our damn business.
As js_africanus suggests I don’t think you understand how science defines what a carcinogen is. Essentially it’s all based on risk. If people who are exposed to substance X are shown to be more likely than the general population to eventually get some form of cancer, then substance X is deemed to be carcinogenic. That does not mean that everyone exposed to substance X will get cancer, nor does it mean that people who have never been exposed to substance X will not get cancer.
This is an important point to understand. Indeed the tobacco industry was able to capitalize on the public’s poor understanding this very area of science and statistics to cloud the issue regarding tobacco and cancer, and for years they got away with it.
From a Darwinian standpoint, Tobacco, fuctioning as Natural Selection, is a sad but effective way of culling the herd of humanity. Ultimately, we cannot outlaw stupidity, selfishness and cruetly.
>it is the choice of those people entrusted with the care and maintenance of the child, and as such, unless the person is mentally retarded or otherwise unstable, the course they take is above reproach, and, more importantly, none of our damn business.<
A philosophy that warms the hearts of child molesters and abusers everywhere. “Suffer the little children…”
Yes, cigarette smoke is a known carcinogen.
So are bread, nuts, alcoholic beverages, and celery.
As ElJeffe has intimated, worrying about something because it poses “a risk” of cancer or other serious diseases is probably a waste of energy. It’s more important to worry about those things that pose “a significant risk” of cancer or other serious diseases.
tracer: It seems like everyone points to the carcinogenic aspect. Who cares about the carcinogenic aspect? It’s irrelevant to the discussion. Many other forms of damage to children from ETS have been pointed out, so who cares about whether cancer is relevant or not? At least in terms of this discussion. beating a child with a belt is not carcinogenic, does that mean it’s not abusive?
Erek
You can’t have ETS be harmful by personal fiat. We’ve been hearing for a few years now how dangerous ETS is in terms of cancer and heart disease, and it turns out that those conclusions were bordering on fraud. Why should we conclude that the other alleged risks are dangerous as well? For that matter, why should we consider those risks to be more pressing? I would suggest that not reading to a child or playing with an infant enough is far more harmful that a little asthma. Better to not play basket ball than be dumb as stump. Should pediatricians report you because you don’t read enought to your kid?
Everything you mentioned has a benefit in the cost/benefit analysis. Please explain to me, as no one else has be able to, the benefit your child receives by enduring the risk of ETS.
Erek
Oh yeah, not to mention, not reading or playing with your child is considered neglect and is considered abusive.
Something that’s not really been touched on in this thread is that there is much that society considers abusive that wouldn’t get a child removed from a home, simply because the system is far worse than leaving them there. So yes, not reading to your children, or not playing with them IS abusive, and if you don’t play with an infant at all, it will be much behind the learning curve, and when the 4 year old can’t do fundamental things in pre-school, your parenting could very well be called into question, and it could result in the removal of your child.
Erek
It sounds like you’re confusing legality with morality. That’s not to defend not reading to one’s child, however just because the state has the legal ability to separate parent from child doesn’t mean that it’s okay for it to do so. This thread is probably the wrong thread to start with from the sounds of it, we should probably hammer out some issues regarding the appropriateness of a Nanny State before these questions can be addressed.
Also note, that it is not my job to show that ETS is good. The burden of proof lies on those making the positive claim. I’m noting that the proof of the risk for cancer & heart disease seems to be bordering on fraud and am concluding that other claims of risk are now in the category of “I’m pretty damn skeptical about that.” If anti-smokers were willing to lie about the cancer risk of ETS, then they have seriously undermined their credibility regarding other risks. That is the hurdle you must jump. If you claim that ETS is harmful in ways other than cancer & heart disease, then please provide some primary sources and publicly available data sets.
In regards to your first question, you seem to be assuming that the risk of ETS is on par with the risk of not-reading, or not massaging a baby. Yet I have no reason to assume that’s the case. If the risk of ETS is similarly chimerical for other risks as it is for cancer, then your question is moot at best. Nor do we know the magnitude of the risk. To say that ETS is bad because something might happen is meaningless. If you can’t give me good meaningful figures for the magnitude of risk from ETS along with a host of other risks that exist in the environment to make sensible comparisons, then again you have failed to meet your obligations of proof.
I’m not setting the bar unreasonably high. This is where it should be set. Unfortunately, anti-smokers feel that it may be set where ever they choose. That is simply not the case.
Here’s what you need to make your case:[ul][li]Primary research showing the non-cancer risks ETS are statistically significant, or failing that, a source I can trust.Estimates of the magnitude of the risk along with other risks for comparison.[/ul][/li]I’m not unreasonable. In fact, my reasonableness is the very cause of my skepticism of the ETS=child abuse claim.
Anyone who would force a child to breathe their second hand smoke is pretty low on the evolutionary scale.
Then consider the plight of the child of a smoker who is just sooooo concerned with second-hand smoke that instead of just exhaling his smoke politely over his shoulder so it’s headed in the opposide direction of his kid’s face, he goes outside and leaves his kid alone every time he lights up. Think of all the time he would have otherwise spent reading or playing with his child if he’d been “allowed” to smoke in the child’s presence! (Yes, he could try to give up smoking or throttle way back on the amount he smokes, but nicotine is highly addictive and it simply may not be possible for him to reduce his smoking habits. Parents are human beings too, with all the normal human failings, and threatening to take their kids away from them just because they don’t posess superhuman willpower isn’t going to help anything.)
Actually, as far as I’m concerned, the real risk of smoking around your kids is not these tiny health risks that may or may not be there. No, the real risk of smoking around your kids is that your kids might start to think of smoking as something grown-ups do, and later pick up the habit themselves. Then they’ve doomed themselves to a lifetime of addicition to **first-**hand smoke, whose health effects are much much worse.
to answer the OP, it should be child abuse. but because there is not a practical way to monitor and punish this, it’s legally not and probably will never be. (what could the punishment be? how much smoke is too much?) sad.
it’s terrible when you attack a defenseless person’s health at such a crucial stage in physical development.
>nicotine is highly addictive and it simply may not be possible for him to reduce his smoking habits. Parents are human beings too<
Anyone who would put their addiction ahead of their child’s health has no business being a parent, period.
OK, Mothchunks, you’ve got me convinced. Let’s snatch these children from their smoking parents and make them wards of the state. C’mon! Who’s with me!? Let’s get 'em!
Probably the major reason I’m not a smoker is that my mom was when I was a kid and I really hated it.