Angry in the Great White North

Wolfville, Nova Scotia, is putting itself on the map with a tough new anti-smoking bylaw -- no smoking inside of a vehicle when a child is present:

A small Nova Scotia town on Monday became the first Canadian municipality to ban smoking in vehicles when a child is present.

All seven councillors in Wolfville, a town of 3,600 located about 70 kilometres northwest of Halifax, voted in favour of the measure.

The law, expected to come into effect next June, would prohibit exposing children under the age of 18 to second-hand smoke in a vehicle.

Wolfville Mayor Bob Stead said the RCMP is on side and will issue first-time offenders a warning, while subsequent offences would likely result in a $50 fine.

The mayor says support is strong and widespread. I believe him. I also believe people don't generally think through these things very well.

The mayor says that this bylaw is a follow-on to the ban on smoking inside of buildings, but that's not really true, is it?

The rules against smoking indoors in a public building applies whether there are children present, adults, seniors, favourite pets, house plants, and when there is no one else present at all (though I suppose in that case no one would know).

But the car ban is specific -- only in the presence of children.

So the rule is to protect children from the actions of adults that would harm children.

So...breaking that law would constitute an act of child abuse?

Is that what we want? Smokers are the same as child abusers?

This is not hypothetical. There are people pushing hard to make smoking and child abuse legally equivalent:

Cigarette smoking is a form of child abuse, says one of the nation's leading child abuse experts, and it's high time we recognize it as such.

"More young children are killed by parental smoking than by all unintentional injuries combined," says James Garbarino, an internationally recognized expert on child protection and the director of Cornell University's Family Life Development Center. These deaths include almost 3,000 annually due to low birth weight, 2,000 due to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and another 1,300 attributed to respiratory infection, asthma and burns, according to researchers in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine (July 1997 edition).

Children of smokers also are more likely to become smokers themselves and, thus, be exposed to the numerous adverse, direct effects of smoking. Coupled with the recent tobacco settlement that finally dispenses with any pretense about the harmlessness of smoking, the pediatric findings should cause us to consider where smoking fits into larger issues of child protection, said Garbarino, author of Raising Children in a Socially Toxic Environment (1995, Jossey-Bass Publishers) and Understanding Abusive Families (in press, Jossey-Bass Publishers).

"Let's call it what it is: Parental smoking is child abuse," he stressed.

I notice that James Garbarino is not an oncologist or pediatrician, but an expert in family life development, including being an expert on such things as bullying.

An expert in bullying. I find that sort of ironic, actually.

The next paragraph is the most important. I've emphasized the key sentence:

Before any parental act qualifies as child abuse or neglect and thus falls within the jurisdiction of the State, it must meet three conditions. First, there must be a basis in scientific knowledge or professional expertise that a particular practice is harmful or dangerous to children. Second, there must be a public debate stimulated by child advocates to use the new knowledge as a basis for challenging what has been regarded as normal and acceptable child rearing. Third, community values must adapt by accepting a new standard of care for children.

It the town of Wolfville has passed a bylaw that says smoking in the presence of a child in particular is illegal, then you know that the anti-smoking people are going use that as a stepping stone to making smoking an act of child abuse in the legal sense.

I don't smoke. I certainly wouldn't smoke in front of my kids, and I don't let other people who are in my home smoke in front of my kids. But I don't think smokers are child abusers. If as a community, however, we make these sorts of rules, then we have to follow through. Smoke in front of your kids, and the State will take your kids away. Continue to smoke in front of your kids, and you'll go to prison. Smoke in front of someone else's kids, and no jury would convict a parent for punching out your lights in an attempt to protect his or her child from your abusive behaviour. Light up within a few feet of where kids are standing, and you'll be set upon by the mob.

Smoking is not illegal. Cigarettes are not banned products. Governments collect huge revenues from taxes on cigarettes. But if the act of smoking is going to be considered one of the most heinous crimes possible (equivalent to beating children), then that has to change immediately. It would be morally reprehensible to continue to sell and tax a product whose normal use constitutes a form of child abuse.

Who out there would like to ban cigarettes? Anyone think it could actually work? Anyone? Right then. Limit the places where smoking can happen, teach people to be responsible, and take personal responsiblity to protect our kids. But be very careful about the equivalences that are drawn, because I don't like the idea of anti-smoking zealots breaking up families and destroying lives over a cigarette.