Anti-smoking zealotry
Text 
No Comments [ Add Comment ]E
very year at the Legislature, we hear a lot of bloviating about personal liberty and personal responsibility and how government should let people alone to make their own decisions. As the old saying goes, the best government is that which governs least.
Except when it's not.
Lawmakers seem to have conveniently forgotten that whole personal-liberty position when it comes to smoking. The House's Health and Human Services Committee last week advanced a bill that would make it illegal for an adult to smoke in a car carrying children age 5 or younger, or if a child is required to be strapped onto a child safety seat. Like the current seat belt law for adults, it would be a secondary offense -- if you're pulled over for another infraction, and you're found to be smoking in the car with a child age 5 or younger, you'll get tagged for $45.
We have to admit, we like the seat belt laws. We wish they were tougher. The consequences of not wearing a seat belt are immediate.
But this whole business of telling people whether or not they can smoke in their own vehicles containing, in most circumstances, their own children is not the same. It seems to us a step too far, even if it is based on sound science concerning the dangers of secondhand smoke. Once you've crossed this line, where does it end? If a Utah parent is forbidden by law to smoke with small children in the car, won't the next step be that Utah parents will be penalized for buying their children fast food? Because, really, fatty foods are unhealthy and slow killers, just like secondhand smoke -- aren't they?
We would never defend smoking. It's a bad habit, and secondhand smoke is undoubtedly dangerous -- the smoke contains carcinogens, and children in households where parents smoke suffer much higher rates of respiratory infections, asthma and even sudden infant death syndrome. It's a scourge. We detest it.
But it's also a legal product sold in grocery and convenience stores across this state and nation. Utah government happily collects taxes on those products and spends the tax dollars on anti-smoking programs and a lot of other items unrelated to smoking.
The long arm of government should have its limits. We're not entirely sure where to draw this ever-shifting line, but controlling an adult's decision to smoke in their own vehicle carrying their own children smacks us as the very definition of too much government intrusion into people's private lives.
We reiterate the question we posed earlier: If we do this, where does it stop?
Add Your Comment
