Children Deserve Clean Air

(Originally published in The Record, March 25th, 2008)

I’ve read with interest the controversy over a proposed ban on smoking in cars while children are present. As a parent who has never smoked, I’d be surprised if any adults chose not to agree that smoking in a car and submitting children to second-hand smoke is cruel and dangerous. Children are to be protected. Let’s give them a fighting chance of not succumbing to cancer or some other chronic disease that may have been caused by second-hand smoke.

I was raised by parents who did not know that second-hand smoking was dangerous, and I was severely asthmatic and often spent time in hospital. I have since survived breast cancer twice and even my doctors cannot say for sure whether this was caused by second-hand smoke all those years ago. My generation and future generations have no excuses, we are educated and we do know.