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Action on Smoking and Health
A National Legal-Action Antismoking Organization Entirely Supported by Tax-Deductible Contributions
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Ontario Medical Assoc. Calls for Ban on Smoking in Cars with Children [10/14-5]
Excerpts from: Ban smoking in Ontario cars doctors' group: Children at risk:
By Nicholas Kohler National Post [10/14/04]
The Ontario Medical Association will today call for a ban on smoking in cars
used to transport children.
The recommendation stems from an OMA-commissioned report slated for release this morning that examines the effects of second-hand smoke on children, the first study of its kind in North America.
If heeded, the move would be the Ontario government's first incursion into personal-use private property, part of its ever-growing effort to stamp out second-hand tobacco smoke.
While much of the OMA study reportedly rehashes old warnings about the dangers of second-hand smoke, it also breaks new ground with evidence leading the association to recommend a ban on smoking in cars.
The report also voices concern about a trend toward smokers lighting up at home, where they put children at risk.
"It has now been established that levels of SHS [second-hand smoke] in homes can reach those found in bars," says the report."
The OMA's recommended ban also assumes that men and women who smoke deliver sub-par parenting to their kids, Ms. Daigneault argued.
"I think to assume that smokers are monsters blowing smoke in their kids' faces is wrong, and I think that's a blanket statement and I'd like to see some evidence that suggests that this is a serious issue," she said.ss.
"Despite the health risks of smoking, there will always be people who continue to choose to smoke, and they will continue to do so in places that are legal to do so," she said.
Last June 1, the City of Toronto became Ontario's latest municipality to ban smoking in all public businesses. Ottawa, Victoria and Winnipeg had already implemented similar bans.
But that is not expected to be the case three years from now, when the provincial government will likely impose a complete smoking ban, preventing tobacco users from lighting up even in such rooms.
The Toronto Board of Health recommended in 2003 that the city put an immediate halt to the construction of all DSRs, leading to an outright ban on separate rooms by 2005. But after a long debate, city council rejected the measure by a vote of 20-19.
The Ontario government said in its Throne Speech last year that it would move toward a public-smoking ban, but Dalton McGuinty's Liberals have made few statements on the matter in the months since.
By the year 2000, more than 40 Canadian municipalities either had in place or were phasing-in bylaws banning smoking in restaurants; 25 had ordered bars to be smoke-free.
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