Ireland joins the race to ban smoking in cars with children
Thursday, April 12, 2012 at 9:12 The debate about smoking in cars has crossed the Irish Sea.
It was already on the health minister's wish list but the subject hit the headlines this week when Senator John Crown, an Irish oncologist and politician, not only called for a ban, he will actively propose legislation in the Seanad next week.
Forest Eireann hit back immediately and our spokesman John Mallon was interviewed by numerous radio stations including the leading national broadcaster RTE Radio 1, Newstalk and Today FM. He was also interviewed on Ireland AM (TV3), Ireland's answer to Daybreak (ITV).
Today we achieved a significant breakthrough with the publication of our first op-ed in a national Irish newspaper. Interestingly it was in the Irish Examiner which has previously been a no-go area for Forest.
See: This creeping puritanism can be applied to anything.
The Examiner has also published a piece by John Crown:
We need to take a legislative stand on behalf of the voiceless.
Reader Comments (3)
"It is possible to rationalise almost anything, when the drive behind it is to protect your access to the drug you crave. The disordered thinking of the addict will lead to them rationalising that they are at liberty to place children in environments which are known to promote disease."
I find this completely offensive. Tobacco is a herb - but maligned as a drug to suit the smokerphobic agenda. "Addition" was decided not because the herb was "addictive" but because without branding it such, they could not denigrate the consumer.
If smoking is so addictive - and passive smoking is so harmful -then how come millions have quit easily and not everyone in the whole world is addicted because of a sniff of tobacco.
Smoking is a habit which is a very different thing to an addiction. We are heading for a chaotic society because children are being taught to believe that heroin is less addictive and harmful than tobacco.
Those of who are knowledgeable about this know the truth. The Govt is giving a very dangerous message to children that heroin is OK because it's as easy to quit as smoking - it's not.
People will steal, sell their body and their soul to get heroin. They won't to get tobacco. They'll go without because they can.
"I am also a former smoker"
Yep. That pretty much says it all. Why do so many ex-smokers – no matter how much they may protest upon first giving up that “I’m not going to become one of those dreadful ex-smoking bores” – always end up becoming exactly that? It’s like they can’t help themselves, and it’s so common that it must be one of the biggest disincentives that there is to even trying to give up smoking. Who wants to run the risk of turning one’s smoker-happy smile into an anti-smoker’s scowl overnight? I've known ex-addicts of all kinds of things from alcohol and gambling to hard drugs, and I’ve always been impressed by how tolerant and non-judgemental they are about still-(ab)users of the things which they were once addicted to.
With the exception of ex-smokers. But why should this be? Is it the old business of replacing one addiction with another? Is feeling better than someone else addictive in and of itself? Or is it the fact that most people who give up smoking – unlike those who reach rock-bottom with other substances/activities – rarely, these days, actually give up because they really want to (they may want to want to, but that’s not the same thing at all, is it?), so that the timings all a bit “out” and the results are, quite frankly, a bit disappointing (which would make one feel a bit resentful and bitter, wouldn’t it, after all those promises of a careless, “smoke free,” happy-clappy life after tobacco?)
So what is the difference? I’ve never heard of any research into this little anomaly – which I think is quite an interesting one, from a psychological perspective, and could be very informative in terms of overall addiction therapies – but in fact I’ve never even seen or heard of anyone who’s ever noticed it apart from me.
Well stated Pat! I'd particularly like to repeat your point about what kids are being taught. Most of them are still going to "experiment" with tobacco and discover that, although nicotine is supposedly "the most addictive drug on the planet," that they're still able to happily just smoke a few fags with the guys and gals after school or on the weekends without missing it much otherwise.
So what's the harm in doing a less addictive drug like heroin? Heck, it's not even bad for your lungs, right?
How many children have ended up dying of heroin overdoses while playing with a drug that has now been pictured as being relatively harmless when compared to a the drug they see so many of their elders and contemporaries using without without evident consequences? How many more have gone on to serious heroin or barbituate addictions after being told they would be easier to give up than cigarettes?
The Antismokers have a lot to answer for and someday they'll be called to account.
Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"