British Medical Assoc. calls for a ban on smoking in all cars, even when driver is alone

[Liberal_in_LA]

Should it be illegal to smoke in your own car?


And some of you – smokers or not – might be more than a tad annoyed at the prospect of Big Brother dictating what you can and cannot do in the privacy of your own vehicle.

No law forbidding all smoking in cars is on the horizon in the U.S. (where a good many people get worked up about proposals to encourage healthy eating by imposing so-called fat taxes on soda, fried foods and the like). But drivers in the United Kingdom may be restricted from lighting up behind the wheel – if the country’s doctors have their way.

A report released Wednesday from the British Medical Assn.’s Board of Science calls on governments in the U.K. to impose a ban on smoking in vehicles as part of its overall effort to “achieve a tobacco-free society by 2035.” Over there, it is already against the law to smoke in buses, taxis and other public vehicles. Extending those rules to private vehicles could be done in one of three ways, the BMA suggests:

The ban could apply only to cars carrying children.
The ban could apply to any car with a passenger of any age.
The ban could apply to all vehicles at all times. (This is the option favored by the doctors, in part because it would be simplest to understand and enforce, they say.)

http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-smoking-ban-in-cars-20111116,0,2357064.story

[Mimosa]

1. Fascism in it's 'caring' form.

I don't smoke. My parents and grandparents did. Neither me nor my sisters were harmed by an adult occasionally smoking in the car.

Smoking may die out through education and knowledge. Far fewer people smoke now than ever used to.

After they tell people they can't smoke in cars it will be they can't smoke in their own homes. Then other incursions on people's personal choices will follow. BTW if people die earlier from smoking they save the health care systems of their countirs more money than if they don't smoke and live longer. A physician once showed me the figures from a study.

[Broderick]

2. But they haven't banned happy meals thankfully

[On the Road]

3. It's England,

the original 'nanny state.' This does seem a bit intrusive for solo drivers.

The other side of this issue has to do with alternatives. I tend to smoke a little bit, but avoid home, car, and crowds of people. (It keeps the smell from being an issue and the smoking from becoming a full-blown everyday habit.) As a result, I will sometimes stop at a vacant portion of a parking lot or the side of a public building. The downside of this is that on multiple occasions I have been stopped and challenged by police and private security guards for suspicious behavior.

I guess it's kind of comical. But there is a sensibility to drive smoking farther and farther outside the public sphere. Garrison Keillor once had a skit on the last smokers, holed up in the mountains, dodging dawn patrols dressed in baby blue jogging outfits. That probably represents the near future.

[TheWraith]

5. Exactly. This is the sort of creepy shit that gives government a bad name.

I believe the BMA was also the group that proposed banning all kitchen knives longer than 2 inches.

Unfortunately, we have our fair share of these types over here in the US, both on the right (who love to target sex, gays, and TV) and on the left (who love to target TV, guns, and sex).

Personally I hate cigarettes massively, but I'm certainly not under the impression I have the right to demand someone else who isn't impinging on me not be allowed to smoke.

[Book Lover]

4. Thank you for giving Top Gear more fodder (nm)