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Just to refresh the memory though:
Smokers and adoption
The argument's only mute when after strapping your blinkers on.
Alcohol (and by proxy drinkers in general) are next on the list; in fact it's already started. It was patently obvious alcohol was the next topic to suffer the full glare of the police of vice and virtue.
I don't smoke and it worries me how people lapse into apathy when it's not something that affect them directly. Hopefully the assault on drinking will be a wakeup call - though i'm not holding my breath.
But alcohol has no fumes, it being indoors or outdoors is irrelevant. If you're arguing it's going to be completely banned then fair enough - but you can't compare the ban on smoking indoors to that because there are different justifications for each.
I would be distraught if my kids ended up at the house of somebody who might smoke around them. I think smoking around children is repulsive. Also note how children learn behaviour from their parents, hence some of them start smoking at eight.
That's not discrimination... If you want to adopt that bad, stop smoking. It's for the welfare of the child. Smokers not smoking indoors is for the welfare of people around them. Hence why it is baffling that so many people are against the ban of smoking indoors, as if they've been nailed to a cross and not allowed to smoke in this country at all. It's a question of decency.
It's not something you can't change either, it's not a disability, it's not an ethnicity.
RE alcohol: I think it's a different case in comparing booze to smoking, but our society and the law has double standards when looking at alcohol compared to other (often less dangerous) drugs. I doubt drinking would get banned in public, we get too much tax from it. I mean smokers are just being asked to step outside, but closing pubs fully?
No way.
And anti-smoking ban people have yet to answer the question...
Since when does the right of a smoker to not have to walk to the door and stand outside for two minutes to smoke, over-ride the rights of other people, including children not to breath their fumes?
What worries me most about this proposal though is the reasoning behind it: let's make really complicated forms to fill out so that will deter people from smoking... wtf?! Yeah, that's clever, let's add more bureaucracy to the system with the only objective of making something which is in my liberty to do, more difficult.
And what really drives me up the wall is the argument that we smokers should be thankful for these measures because that will 'help' us quit smoking. I'm sorry, but I don't want to quit smoking, I happen to enjoy it, which is why I do it! Logic behind these measures are patronising in that it automatically assumes people smoke because they can't help themselves.
To be fair, if you cared that much you wouldnt put them up for adoption in the first place.
Someone being a smoker or not has absolutely no bearing on their parenting skills or any other skills, apart from maybe their long distance running skills or lung capacity.
Its a stupid restriction. They should be encouraging people to adopt
I agree they should encourage to adopt, but I can also see their concerns with smokers adopting children. If the child picks up the behaviour, or if the smoker smokes around the child.
It's about the child's wellbeing.
And again... If a smoker wants to adopt so bad, then they can stop. It's not rocket science... The law doesn't say that black people can't adopt, or gay people... It just chooses a group that has a habit which harms people around them.
I wouldn't want my kids going to parents which smoke, as I'd be worried they'd smoke around them. Of course, better a smoker than a heroine addict, but still...
Tbh, I'd be far, far more distraught if my children ended up in the house of someone who physically and/or emotionally abuses them, or have questionable psychological competencies to raise children then if they were to land in the house of adults who opt for healthy discipline measures, and who will raise them to be psychologically stable and happy people even if they occassionally happen to light a fag around them.
But I wouldn't want the risk.
Smoking around children is repulsive in my view... It IS hurting children. Kids don't need to breath it, they don't need to see their parents doing it at such an impressionable age where they might pick it up themselves.
The possibility of the child being abused has nothing to do with the argument. That could happen in any situation.
Hes a fantastic parent, and the fact that he smokes has no bearing on his competence at parenting well, any more than it has a bearing on his ability to do web design for example. I think its crap that if we wanted to adopt, then that would even be an issue when we're perfectly within our rights to breed as much as we like naturally. Lets stick another law for infertile people that doesnt exist for everyone else, when it has no bearing on parenting at all anyway??? Whats the point of that?? You might hate to think of parents smoking, but thats no basis for law
If you're a smoker yourself, you agree then that you shouldn't be allowed to adopt children even if you choose to smoke only when children aren't around?
No, actually it is relevant when you are discussing the child's welfare in a system that can't consider everything at the same time. My argument is that the harm of smoking has been completely blown out of proportion when discussing the parents' aptitude to adopt children. When I think about the welfare of the child, there are hundreds of other things that spring to mind in relation to people's aptitudes as parents, and which adoption regulation should be looking at more closely before throwing a blanket ban on all smokers who might, actually, have much better overall abilities for parenthood. It's about what to give priority to.
You really are missing the point entirely.
I'm presuming you'd be in full support of consumers of alcohol and fat people not being able to adopt? Cause you know, they really couldn't be trusted not to force feed pies/alcohol to their kids, and if not, the kids still might pick up these horrible habits.
no, im pretty sure its a ban, not just a factor in the decision. You could possibly liken it to only teetotal people being allowed a driving licence/
So it is. That is bullshit. I guess you've got to weigh up the risks involved in growing up in a family of smokers vs. growing up in a life in care because not enough people want to adopt. I think the latter is far more likely to end up as a heroin-addicted hooker buried under someone's patio. No offence to anyone who grew up in care, like, just going on statistics again.
With the smoking ban, there is a point: the risk of passive smoking (whatever that risk may be). There are legitimate grounds for debate as to whether that is sufficient grounds for criminalising smoking in public places, I think even the people opposed to it can see that there is some logic to its proposal.
A smoker's licence though? What would be the point?
We have TV licences as a specific means of raising revenue for the BBC. I can see a point there, though again it is often up for debate and rightly so.
We have driving licences so that we can ensure that people who are driving cars have attained a minimal level of competence at doing so. You could argue that a lot of people need re-testing. It also means that licences can be taken away from people. I've never seen it debated, doesn't mean that it isn't!
So, the smoker's license. Would people ever be refused a licence to be a smoker? When? Who? On what grounds? There's no "safe" time at which to let someone smoke, so it would be pointless to deny people the choice at the point that they have developed lung cancer, or are otherwise suffering from the effects of their addiction. Who would make that decision - Charlie at the local newsagents or some office worker at the smoker's licensing agency?
Seriously? What would be the point?
It's a farcical idea that would be impossible to carry out. Smokers could all club together (oh those sneaky smokers) to buy a licence in order to reduce the cost and then the named person would be responsible for buying all the cigarettes for everyone down the Red Lion of a Friday night. Will a limit be introduced so you can only buy cigarettes for your own consumption? Maybe newsagents and Tesco cigarette and lottery card counters could be given a pretty little stamp pad set with which they could brand you as a light/medium/heavy smoker. If you reached your limit then Julie at Victoria Wines could refuse to serve you - "I think you've had enough already, mate." Don't make me laugh!
So that begs the question - who would check up on this? The already overstretched and underwhelming police force? Would they trawl the doorways of Britain's pubs and clubs to make sure that each and every smoker has a licence for that Lambert and Butler light? Or would they start knocking on the doors of people's homes to ensure that all the home drinkers who don't go to pubs anymore because of the smoking ban weren't smoking illegally? And what exactly would they plan to do about duty free cigarettes, stop every person returning from a holiday outside the EU, to check their license? Laughable. Maybe they can start a new special force within the police force that is dedicated to the patrol and control of smokers and their behaviour. Who couldn't stand behind that and feel proud of the priorities of our government?
When I first read this story I thought I was going to read about a genuinely sensible suggestion - to allow public places to apply for smoking licences, rather like the Spanish system (if I understand their system correctly). But licences for individuals? State intervention in matters that are supposedly still matters of our own picking and choosing.
This is the next step on the road to criminalising part of the population. I think it's unbelievable. Either February 15th is the new April 1st or there's something a bit stronger in that cigarette...
As for the wholly unrelated and rather inappropriate discussion of smoking and parenting, all I can say is that they're totally unrelated. Why stop at adoptive situations? Maybe in order to keep the child she has just delivered, a woman should have to prove her non-smoker piety? Or maybe just go into rehab to learn the error of her ways and reconcile herself with her selfishness. I ask you, are the attitudes of people who support such stipulations for people who would like to adopt and love a child, really appropriate and rational? I think not.
Smoking 1, 5, 10, 20 cigarettes a day does not automatically effect parenting ability. Maybe some people chain smoke around their children, that's no indication that a smoker who wants to adopt is going to do that. All it would do is make someone hide the fact that they're a smoker, as if they're a criminal engaging in criminal activity. As far as I was aware smoking is not a crime yet, at least not in the strict sense of the word... though it can certainly feel that way. Of the friends I have who are parents, either the mother or father (or both) smoke occasionally. They enjoy it. Despite what may be thought about parenthood suddenly turning you into a god-like figure, people retain their personality, tastes and enjoyments of days gone by. I still enjoy the odd smoke when I go out, or when we have a glass of wine of a night, so does the father of my children and I can assure anyone who may be curious that it has no impact on our parenting skills and is not harming our daughters. This makes me so furious. Oh to be so righteous and perfect....
"Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying themselves." :wave:
Good post. :thumb:
However, smoking debates seem to cause people to lose the power of logic and reason and turns most people into extreme right-wing reactionaries who wish to hound every smoker out of the land with pointy sticks.
If this goes through (which it probably won't), I'm emigrating to somewhere that actually respects a tax-paying, law-abiding intelligent adult's wish to do what the fuck they like with their own body.
Every single parent I know who smokes, smokes around their kids. Just my experience but that my parents, my friends parents, my uncles / aunts and so on, so it's not a completely invalid point from Namaste. Of course, I may be the exception and every other smoker in the country never smokes round their kids.
Thing is, and I'm not meaning to come down hard on smokers, I think a lot of smokers truly don't realise whether it's affecting others. It's just relaxing to sit down at night watching a film with a cigarette. So many times I've been choking through the night because of cigarettes smoked by other people. It got to the point where my dad felt so guilty for it that he stopped smoking altogether.
But near every smoker I talk to justifies their habit like it does no harm - but how can you be sure? Like I said in my first post, if you're an alcoholic socially there are massive negative connotations and people won't want to hang around you any more. Cigarettes; loads of people don't even acknowledge they're addicted.
The key thing to remember is that other people's freedom to be left alone is also your freedom to be left alone. Approving of a small number of authority figures having power over other people's lives at this micro level will see the whole of society in the crapper, given time.
Everyone dislikes something, and everyone can come up with good reasons why whatever they don't like should stop. This means it's a matter of time bfore something that you like and do is banned and you are criminalised for doing things that any sane person would consider normal.
How about a licence to flush the toilet?
For making a cuppa?
Or to have electricity after nightfall?
Licences make money for those who print them and give power to those who can come up with reasons to have them.
What do you get?
Umm, the tax on fags?
Currently, smokers contribute about £8bn p/a to the Gov't via taxes (and incidentally, the annual cost of treating people with smoking-related illnesses to the NHS is around £1.5bn - thus we should get red fucking carpet treatment
It's nowhere near as simple as that thunderstruck, you should know that.
If the tax was £6bn the cost may well increase to £3bn. And so on. And it's about preventative measures too.
How much does it cost to replace someone in a family when they die of cancer?
The tax is a disincentive, to stop people smoking because of the amount of negative effects it causes.
:eek: Do you really believe that?