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OP-ED/GUEST EDITORIAL |
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
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CONTACT: Destiny
Zeiders |
State Rep. Peter J. Daley |
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January 26, 2007
Put children in the driver’s seat
By Rep. Peter J. Daley (D-49th)
No one has a stronger or more sincere desire to spare young children from inhaling secondhand smoke than one who has been there and suffered that. Because of my own childhood exposure to heavy doses of secondhand smoke, I am alarmed when I see someone smoking in a car while there is a child present.
My formative years growing up in a small town in western Pennsylvania were spent inhaling the secondhand smoke of my mother’s pack-a-day habit. At no place was it worse than in the confines of the family car, where my sister and I were held hostage in a cloud of smoke while my mother gleefully sucked away, oblivious to the havoc it was playing on her own children’s health. It was even worse in the winter when it was too cold to roll down a window. I used to lie down in the back seat and shove my nose in the crease between the bottom and the back of the seat, trying to get just a little bit of fresh air. If that didn’t work, I’d beg her to stop the car, so nauseated that I sometimes thought I was going to throw up. While Ma thought I suffered from motion sickness I always knew that cigarette smoke was the cause.
According to Dr. Judith Samkoff, senior partner of the Samkoff Consulting Group and formerly an epidemiologist in the Pennsylvania Department of Health, medical and public health literature provides conclusive evidence that secondhand smoke causes premature death and disease in children and in adults who do not smoke.
The need for regulations prohibiting smoking while a child is in a vehicle can be seen clearly from a recent study on the levels of tobacco smoke in a vehicle published by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health. The study analyzed vehicles driven with a cigarette being smoked in the driver’s seat, measuring tobacco levels with the window open and closed. The study showed that even with a window rolled all the way down, high levels of tobacco smoke remain in the vehicle. In addition, with windows closed, the tobacco levels were so toxic they would be of grave harm even to healthy occupants. While these high levels of environmental contaminants would be categorized by the Environmental Protection Agency as “hazardous” to the general population, the study concluded that they had a far more serious health risk to young children.
Toxic particles from secondhand smoke can settle on objects and the seats in a car. Tobacco smoke contains traces of many poisons, including arsenic, benzene, cadmium, carbon monoxide and, of course, nicotine. Since we all know how children love to touch things and then put their hands in their mouths, they run the risk of being exposed to these contaminants in more ways than one.
“The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke,” a report released by the Surgeon General in July 2006, further supports the need for regulation. This comprehensive study reaffirms that exposure to secondhand smoke increases a child’s risk of developing lower respiratory infections, middle ear infections, asthma and decreased lung function. According to the report, there is also evidence that secondhand smoke exposure increases the risk for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Children who have asthma, cystic fibrosis and other chronic lung diseases are particularly endangered by other peoples’ cigarette smoke.
Most striking in the report are the trends of exposure to secondhand smoke. Over the past 20 years, the population that has witnessed the least reduction in exposure to secondhand smoke has been children. Specifically, those with the highest levels of nicotine in their blood were children ages 4 to 11, an age group that has little opportunity to make their own decision to avoid secondhand smoke from the adults in their lives.
Aside from an overall decline in tobacco use and the dependence of children on their adult caretakers to protect them from exposure to secondhand smoke, reduction in the levels of exposure can mostly be attributed to successful laws to reduce workplace, restaurant and bar smoking. However, our success at reducing adult exposure to secondhand smoke also highlights our failure to protect children, the very population we should have focused on first in terms of exposure reduction.
In 1988, I was the first state legislator in the nation to propose a ban on smoking in cars where there are young children present. I wanted to stand up for those kids who did not have a choice. While I received much attention and accolades from the likes of CNN and Paul Harvey’s radio program, I faced overwhelming opposition and scorn from many who believed that my concern about adverse health effects from secondhand smoke were overridden by the constitutional rights and protections of parents. Never mind that I was recovering from surgery on my vocal folds to correct a problem that my doctor attributed to years of breathing secondhand smoke. Folks didn’t want to be told that secondhand smoke was bad, and the flurry of negative reaction won out in the end.
Over the last two decades, the risks of secondhand smoke have become much clearer and the health effects of second-hand smoke exposure have been shown to be more pervasive than previously thought.
If laws exist to protect people, then my legislation banning smoking in cars where children are present makes perfect sense. The level of evidence is overwhelming, and the time is long overdue to protect Pennsylvania’s children from the dangers of secondhand smoke. That is why I will once again introduce legislation that would make it illegal for an adult to smoke in a vehicle with a child present. No child should have to endure secondhand smoke simply because an adult is addicted to nicotine. Children should not be exposed to secondhand smoke when they do not have a choice in the matter and are at the mercy of an adult and locked in a small space.
Under my legislation, a violation would occur if the smoking takes place in a vehicle transporting children who are in child safety seats. Legal requirements in Pennsylvania require a child to be in a car seat until they weigh 80 pounds or are 8 years old. Penalty upon conviction would be up to a $100 fine for a first offense and a minimum $250 fine for any subsequent offense.
The intent of my legislation is to be an educational tool to enhance existing efforts to reduce or eliminate childhood exposure to secondhand smoke, and is not intended to punish smokers. A first-time offender could receive a simple warning from a district justice. However, we need to get our priorities straight and do everything we can to make sure our children grow up in safe and healthy environments. That includes protecting them from secondhand smoke.
In the past, debates about secondhand smoke have centered on who has the right to control the air: smokers who wish to smoke anywhere they please or nonsmokers who believe they have the right to breathe clean air. Absent from the debate have been the children who have no voice. My legislation would protect those children who have no choice but to do what they are told.
Secondhand smoke is clearly a bad thing. Now is the time and this is the place to do something about it. Let’s conscientiously examine the research findings and promote a smoke-free environment to protect Pennsylvania’s children, who, by the way, have rights too.
State Rep. Peter J. Daley (D-49th) is currently serving his 13th term representing Washington/Fayette counties. He is majority chairman of the House Commerce Committee.
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