Nicotine Addiction, Laws, Children

I recently had a friend on Facebook post about a new law is taking effect where it will be illegal for parents to smoke cigarettes in a car when they have a child on board. At first my closet libertarian became outraged about how could we possibly legislate away all of our  freedoms, as if somehow poisoning your child with lethal carcinogens was an inalienable right guaranteed in the constitution.  That thought alone made me think about my own upbringing 

I remember my parents smoking in the car. Growing up we had an array of different vehicles ranging from a Ford Country Squire Station Wagon to a Massive Winged Cadillac and the Chrysler the B52’s sang about in Love Shack. None of these cars were purchased new, nor could any of them ever be considered pristine. Regardless of make or model all of them were smoked in by both my father and mother. The country squire had through rust in the rear where the fold out seats were. On long trips the smaller children (like me) would be put back there where the combination of the cigarette smoke would mix with the exhaust fumes.  No wonder I like a good buzz as an adult.

Growing up in the sixties and seventies my folks were smokers and unabashed about it.  I wasn’t around for the start of their addiction but I did live through their cessation and ultimately their demise directly impacted by their lifelong affiliation with the RJ Reynolds Nicotine Cartel 

Friday nights when I was a kid they would drink hi balls of Canadian Club and Coke and smoke Camels in the kitchen while listening to John Gary, Harry Belafonte, Petula Clark, Johnny Mathis, and others at a thundering volumes while smoking. With no ventilation the smoke would extend from the ceiling to about three feet from the floor. We thought it was cool as kids we'd crawl around under the smoke and run thru it mixing it up like fog from a smoke machine. A circular fluorescent light would illuminate the kitchen and when the starter would age the light would strobe creating eerie shadows   

My mothers favorite color was blue so out kitchen was always painted in a robins egg hue which after a few years would take on a patina of nicotine brown that would stain the white ceilings tan and produce a sepia gradient from the ceiling to the floor.  

Dad would paint the kitchen with semi gloss paint for wash ability but I don’t ever remember anyone washing them, just repainting when they became too dingy for mom to tolerate. Humidity would cause runs in the nicotine, clearing rivulets of clean blue paint next to the brown. When these became prevalent, the calls for painting would come out.

Keeping people from smoking with their kids in the car is a great idea, but as a reformed cigarette addict I can tell you from experience smoking in the car is probably where I received the most enjoyment from the habit. Cigarettes helped me through the tedium of traffic jams, assisted me with boredom on long commutes and calmed my nerves after close calls. Later in my addiction, when being a smoker was synonymous with being a social pariah, the car was the only sanctuary where I could smoke without the fear of disdain, rejection or verbal assault.

Kids in cars with smokers are literally hotboxing nicotine especially in the northeast where we keep the windows up in the winter when it’s cold and in the summer when it’s hot.

Restaurants bars and night clubs in most places as well as public buildings, airports and transportation centers are all now non smoking and lighting up near any of them will result in a quick rebuke from practically any one.

But we really can’t expect to come into people’s homes and make it illegal to smoke in them, and in my experience as a child that was where I had the most exposure to second hand smoke.

It’s not like the old days. We know better now. The Mad Men advertising executives of the 50’s and 60’s had my Mom and Dad convinced that four out of five doctors preferred camels for their patients who smoked. Education programs including the new non-varnished ads of people with voice boxes, cancer victims and low weight babies can convince young people that starting smoking is a bad deal for you financially, socially and ultimately will kill you.

Having parents who heed that advice largely makes all the rest of all this unnecessary.