MPs move to ban smoking in private vehicles

Destroy Big Tobacco – in 1930s Germany you would have probably called yourself “destroy the Jews”

Why should it be lawful for parents to expose their children to airborne carcinogenic toxins in an enclosed space?!
No problem with this whatsoever (speaking as a smoker and a child of a smoker)
Used to hate it when mum smoked in the car when i was a kid and I had no choice but to breathe in her smoke.

I also find it very hard to believe you are a smoker – you can’t dislike smoke and then take up smoking. Something doesn’t seem right with what you say.

Pat Nurse -
Kids aren’t trapped in a confined space with car fumes and forced to breathe them as they are when a parent smokes in a car. I’m flabbergasted that you believe that just because your kids say it’s ok you continue to smoke in the car with them. £100 says all of your children suffer from asthma.
So someone who disliked being forced to inhale second hand smoke as a child can’t grow up to become a smoker? Your argument makes no sense.
Peter Thurgood -
This isn’t about adults make decisions to avoid smoke as you imply. This about about protecting the children of smokers like Pat Nurse who are stuck in a car inhaling their negligent parent’s smoke.

Demonising second hand smoke, albeit scientifically inaccurate pales into insignificance when compared to the carnage caused by car pollution. Here is a summary from Parliament headed up by Tim Yeo.
“air pollution could be contributing to as many as 50,000 deaths per year – as it makes asthma worse and exacerbates heart disease and respiratory illness. Averaged across the whole UK population it is estimated that poor air quality is shortening lives by 7-8 months.”
“Air pollution on UK streets is contributing to tens of thousands of early deaths each year and the Government is not doing enough to tackle the problem, according to a report published today by the cross-party Environmental Audit Committee.
Report: Air Quality Environmental Audit Committee
Tim Yeo MP, Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee said:
“Air pollution probably causes more deaths than passive smoking, traffic accidents or obesity, yet it receives very little attention from Government or the media.”
“In the worst affected areas this invisible killer could be taking years off the lives of people most at risk, such as those with asthma.
“Much more needs to be done to save lives and reduce the enormous burden air pollution is placing on the NHS.”
According to evidence presented to the inquiry, air pollution could be contributing to as many as 50,000 deaths per year – as it makes asthma worse and exacerbates heart disease and respiratory illness. Averaged across the whole UK population it is estimated that poor air quality is shortening lives by 7-8 months. In pollution hotspots it could be cutting the most vulnerable people’s lives short by as much as nine years, the report says.
Despite these considerable impacts on public health, very little effort is being put into reducing air pollution levels compared with efforts to tackle smoking, alcohol misuse and obesity, the report says.
Air pollution from road vehicles causes the most damage to health, the MPs conclude. A dramatic shift in transport policy is required if air quality is to be improved, they add.”
http://www.parliament.uk/business/news/2010/03/early-deaths-from-air-pollution-shame-uk-says-report/

@Nick
Here are some scientific studies done into how much non smokers breathe in. For example the worst figure is 0.009 cigarettes per hour, not even 1% of an active smoker.
Explain to me why this is so dangerous.
I should also add the UK government’s report into passive smoking published in November 2004 the Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health (SCoTH). Written by Action on Smoking and Health’s (ASH) Trustee Dr. Martin Jarvis on page 8 (SCoTH) numbering he writes:
The increased risk associated with exposure to SHS is about 25%, a substantial fraction of the risk from active smoking, although uptake of smoke by non-smokers is typically only about 1% of that by active smokers”
“What I hope to do over the coming weeks is publish as much information on passive smoking that I have in my archives. Firstly what I want to consider is how much does a non smoker inhale from a smoker.
The first paper is from 1975 and was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Commuter train 0.004
Commuter bus 0.005
Bus waiting room 0.001
Airline waiting room 0.003
Restaurant 0.004
Cocktail lounge 0.009
Student lounge 0.002
The last figure is the the equivalent of cigarettes per hour based on the nicotine the machine picked up.”
http://daveatherton.wordpress.com/2011/04/25/a-critical-review-of-the-evidence-on-passive-smoking/

Think about it. There’s always more to events than immediately meet the eye.
Is this anything to do with justifying the use of anpr /cctv cameras? Fine anyone with a fag in their mouth / hand whilst they drive – ensuring there are still jobs for cctv operators.

Nick: “Kids aren’t trapped in a confined space with car fumes and forced to breathe them as they are when a parent smokes in a car.”
Yes they are. All cars are fitted with ventilation systems which take in air fom in front of the vehicle and pump it into the enclosed car space. Cars follow other cars pumping out exhaust fumes which DO kill in a very short space of time (unlike passive smoke). In traffic, this is multiplied greatly.
So I take it you would be all for criminalising drivers who don’t switch their ‘blowers’ to just re-circulate the air within their own car, yes? For the sake of the chiiildren, natch.
If your child is in a car, there’s your respiratory danger. Passive smoking is a minute problem by comparison.

‘The increased risk associated with exposure to SHS is about 25%’
Nick, you just walked into the epidemiological trap set to capture the gullibility of people who see a big number without having any understanding of the mechanics of risk.
Here’s a lesson for you.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7937382.stm

As a non- smoker (never have been, but I have tried it) yes the health issues have to be considered.
However, this is a diversion from the actual debate; which is freedom of movement without the gaze of the state (or insurance companies for that matter).
What would the implications be, should this motion ever become law? That the state would have the right to constantly monitor whether a driver (or adult passenger) was smoking, and if there was a minor in the car.
Arguing over the obvious is to the detriment of the actual debate

Today saw yet another assault on the rights of smokers on the floor of the House of Commons. Alex Cunningham, who is apparently the Member of Parliament for Stockton North, today moved the ‘Smoking in Private Vehicles Bill’ – a move to ban adults from smoking in their cars when children are present. The bill passed the House of Commons by a margin of 78 to 66 but, due to the constraints of parliamentary time, it is unlikely to ever become law. Big Brother Watch’s position on this proposal is clear: MPs should stop treating adults like children. You control…

@Gregster
Nice try
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3590578.stm

@Destroy Big Tobacco:
“The National Cancer Institute team told Tobacco Control”
Considering both of those entities are funded by pharmaceutical companies, your killer provenance is sorely lacking.
How about this – “Imperial Tobacco told Forest that smoking is healthier than broccoli”. On the basis of the above, you’d believe that, would you?
Please grow some healthy scepticism and actually research your sources, or ditch your blinkered prejudice. Your choice.

Even if inhaling vehicle exhaust fumes is more dangerous than inhaling tobacco 2nd hand, we need cars and we do not need tobacco. So the comparison between the dangers of cars and the dangers of tobacco is completely beside the point.

Richard Craven
This is a health issue (so we are told) not one of economic expediency. There is negligible risk from secondary smoke, and the comprehensive legislation we already have is overkill. The usefulness of smoking versus the usefulness of cars is not even relevant. The relative toxicity of smoke versus exhaust emissions has more relevance.

To David, Belinda, et all. The people we are trying to argue with here are not ordinary, normal people, who are willing to listen and hopefully learn. They are hard-core nuts, who spend the whole lives trying to enforce their twisted beliefs onto others.
I have just scanned through the posts here, and as usual, there are the moderates, and the people with self appointed names, which sum up perfectly, their attitude to life and discussion in general. “Destroy big tobacco”. I mean to say, what sort of person gives themselves a name like this? What sort of person wants to “destroy” anything?
If Big Tobacco was destroyed, it would also destroy millions of jobs around the world, and take away billions in revenue. But that doesn’t seem to matter to idiots like this does it? As long as they get their own way.
This particular idiot even tries to tell us that second hand smoke is more dangerous than vehicle exhaust fumes. Maybe when his supply of pills runs out he will lock himself in a room somewhere, with a cigarette burning in an ashtray, and end it all?

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2811%2960952-5/fulltext?elsca1=TL-240611&elsca2=email&elsca3=segment

You got it right dolar etc., ‘respect’ is what it should be all about – respect for people who wish to smoke, and respect for people who don’t. It works both ways you know!