Opinion: You evil smoking parents!
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Some smoking bans are so outrageous that even the California Legislature doesn’t pass them the first, second, third, or even fourth time around. State Sen. Jenny Oropeza is confident that the fifth time’s a charm, with her attempt to ban adult smoking in cars carrying anyone under 18 -- the most restrictive such ban ever attempted in California. Previous versions (all since 2004) went as far cars with kids six year old or younger or in car seats. Under Oropeza’s bill, cops could pull over any adult puffing away in a car with anyone who looks 17 or under; so kids, better grow out that adolescent beard if you don’t want mommy or daddy to get a $100 fine.
Oropeza’s bill goes before the state Senate’s health committee tomorrow. Among Oropeza’s supporters who echo the senator’s troubling logic is the Long Beach Press-Telegram, which wrote in an editorial:
Not putting a child in a car seat is an unimaginable transgression in this era, but planting the seeds of cancer and other ailments remains OK under the law because the damage is done over years, not seconds.
Personally, I don’t like ‘slippery slope’ arguments because they avoid evaluating the merits of the issue at hand. But the Press-Telegram and similar arguments beg for such a rebuttal. A car is one’s own private property, but it’s acceptable for the state to legislate behavior such as child-seat requirements because driving a car and child safety are intertwined. But smoking while driving has nothing to do with an adult’s ability to operate a car safely while a child is present, as car seats do. If it’s bad for kids in inhale second-hand smoke, why not outlaw puffing away in one’s own home? (Belmont, a city south of San Francisco, is putting together such a draconian proposal, which we editorialized against in January.)