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From: wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin )
Newsgroups: net.misc,net.med
Subject: Re: Why Smoke?
Message-ID: <3045@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 13-Jun-84 11:32:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.3045
Posted: Wed Jun 13 11:32:46 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 14-Jun-84 01:10:40 EDT
References: <269@ihu1e.UUCP>, <144@plx.UUCP>
Organization: Ballistics Research Lab
Lines: 35

An excellent and frightening article on smoking! My respects to the author.

One point he made, excerpted below, is quite important:

>     One of the strongest reasons to start smoking is pre-addiction.
>     My wife's mother smoked 2 packs of unfiltered Pall Malls
>     while pregnant with Renee, who is now my wife. 
>     Thereafter, for the next 20
>     years, Renee shared 988 square feet with her mother and step-father
>     who each smoked at least two packs of cigarettes per day.
>     When Renee took up smoking at about age 17, she was simply
>     following a craving she'd had all her life. It's like craving
>     eggs if you have a protein/cholesterol deficiency.

This is further evidence for a contention I have stated for years.
Simply put, for a parent/stepparent/guardian to smoke is child abuse.

If you care about your or other children, for whatever reason,
it is inexcusable for them to be exposed to smoke or smokers,
whether in the womb or out of it.

There is no reason to treat this child abuse any differently than
that involving physical beating or imprisonment or any of the other
forms for which parents/guardians are criminally charged.

A movement to add "smoking while pregnant or in the presence of or in the
same domicile as a child" to the legal definition of child abuse
in the various states may well be the most effective anti-smoking
tactic for the effective reduction of smoking. I wonder why the
Surgeon General has not adopted this tactic instead of emphasizing
the dangers to current adult smokers. Why waste time on them; if
the next generation can be weaned away from smoking, the problem will
vanish as the preceeding one dies off.

Will