“California could be on its way to becoming the first U.S. state to outlaw smoking in cars or trucks that have children inside.” The bill, which would make lawbreakers of parents transporting their own children, has been introduced by Assemblyman Marco Firebaugh and is being supported by the bossyboots American Lung Association, a good reason to scratch that organization off one’s charitable donation list (“Calif. Bill Would Ban Smoking in Car with Kids”, Yahoo/Reuters, Apr. 28)(see Sept. 24). (Update May 29: bill narrowly defeated in California Assembly.) Irish Minister for Health and Children Miche?l Martin, who pushed through a recent ban on smoking in pubs and most other public places in the Emerald Isle, has announced that he is “very tentatively” mulling a fat tax, according to a profile by Andrew Stuttaford, who calls Martin a number of rude names including “nosey, hectoring clown” (“Goodbye to All That”, National Review Online, Apr. 27)(via Radley Balko). A bill being discussed in Rhode Island’s legislature and backed by state Attorney General Patrick Lynch, primarily aimed at increasing the penalties for school truancy, would also authorize courts to revoke or suspend the driver’s license of high schoolers determined to be “wayward”, a category that includes students found in possession of cigarettes. (Wendy Fontaine, “Truancy plan gets mixed review”, Newport Daily News, Apr. 30). And Jacob Sullum catches the federal government’s National Institute of Aging dispensing flagrant untruths about the relative hazards of smokeless tobacco (“Lies and the Health Nannies Who Tell Them”, Reason “Hit and Run”, Mar. 24).
Tobacco-ban roundup
“California could be on its way to becoming the first U.S. state to outlaw smoking in cars or trucks that have children inside.” The bill, which would make lawbreakers of parents transporting their own children, has been introduced by Assemblyman Marco Firebaugh and is being supported by the bossyboots American Lung Association, a good reason […]
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