For the Children's Sake: Ban It Already!! (or, The Hypocrisy of Keeping Smoking Legal)

The commercial starts with a child, grade school age, in bed obviously sick. The mother call the school to tell them she isn't coming into class that day because of her cold. Meanwhile, the mother lights up a cigarette. The commercial fades to black and someone voices over how many thousands of children miss school every day due to second hand smoking related health problems.

I shout out at the TV "Then ban it!"

Another commercial comes on. This time it shows a family of 4 sitting around the TV. Both parents have lit cigarettes in hand or mouth. The younger child, playing next to the parents, reaches into his pocket and takes out an inhaler. The kid shakes it up and takes a big lung full of the medication. Then goes back to playing. The screen goes dark and a voice over tells how many thousands of children suffer from asthma due to second hand smoke.

I shout at the TV "Then ban the stuff already!!"

My wife hates it when I do that. But I'm serious.

Depending on which group's website you read as many as 20,000 or 30,000 or even 50,000 children it is claimed die from second hand smoke every year!

If any of this is true then why not just ban tobacco already?!?!

The government bans anything at the drop of hat for cause far less injuries or deaths. Especially if it can be pegged to children.

Think about it: If there was a food or a medicine or a toy or anything else that caused from 10,000 to 50,000 child deaths nationally per year heads would be rolling in Washington as to why it hasn't yet been banned! And we have been told about the claimed evils of second hand smoke for at least 15 years now. So if there is any truth to those figures that means between 150,000 and 750,000 children are dead because of tobacco in that time period!! Yet it's still legal.

Because the government at the federal, state and local levels can collect taxes from it. So if these figures are correct the government is allowing tens of thousands of children to be sick and even die every year just to collect taxes.

But I don't see any outcries about it.

I am not an anti-smoking Nazi. Someone wants to smoke, in this day and age if you aren't aware of the health risks you've been living in a cave. Freedom is the chance to make bad, even life threatening, decisions.

But stop this hypocrisy right now. If smoking tobacco is in fact sickening and killing tens of thousands of children a year than have the ethical guts to just ban the stuff and be done with it.
Businesses are constantly being vilified for claims of putting profits before people. But I guess it's OK for government to put tax revenues before children's lives

Hypocrisy.

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