Hello. Im sarah. I've just recently discovered that a Borough in redbridge London, has passed the law that foster parents are banned from smoking if they are to take care of a child. I want to write a short article about this for my class work (it's not going to be published or anything) I just want to gather opinions wherever I can possible.
What do you think about this?
It would be such a great help to get an opinion from any of you out there that have more wisdom than myself!
Thanks. Also if your up for helping me out on this one, Please help!
Thank you so much for your time.
Sarah xx

Being a smoker does not make you a bad parent. I do not agree with this law. I think foster parents should not smoke in the house nor in the car... or even around the kids, but if you want to smoke you can always step outside. I do not agree to the extent of it being banned. I agree it should not be done in front of the kids.

I truly hope they plan on finding a LOT more foster parents, and doing something about the natural parents out there who smoke.

Sounds like a form of discrimination, to me, and in the end it's only really going to hurt the kids.

I'm a smoker and I have two kids. I don't smoke in the house or in the car. When I do smoke it's outside or in the garage.

What about drinking? Can you have a glass of wine with dinner or is that wrong too? Where do we draw the line?

Many people smoke, drink, and worse. Smoking is legal, so why the big deal?

There aren't enough foster parents out there as it is, now they're cutting the numbers down even more?

Smoking is bad for you, but it doesn't make you a bad person or bad parent.

Too much government control when they can tell us what we can and can not do in our homes.

NAPALMFACE agrees: Thank you for taking notice - too much control not enough enforcement. No one should smoke - how about that!. and then it is no one should eat Twinkies or McDonalds.

I'd have to see the exact text of this law before I disagree with it.

But I must say I can understand it. Enough studies have proven the potential damage of second hand smoke that a case could be made for this.

I suspect that the legislators are doing this with our litgious society in mind. Lets say a 20 yr old gets diagnosed with lung cancer. He was placed with foster parents who smoked heavily at age 5. Now he sues the agency that placed him because they put him in harm's way.

I don't think that's far fetched.

I agree that smokers are not necessarily bad parents, but smoking in the presence of a child does seem to be outting them in harm's way.

I am all for people not smoking but I have a problem with government telling people what to do in their homes to a degree
Next they will be telling foster parents that the kid is overweight and they must make him lose weight or else lose custody. Can they/should they have that much involvement?
Then the system is unjust, while they are crucifying a foster family for smoking they often are closing their eyes to the parents that are drinking and doing drugs WITH their kids.

But I don't see that as the case here. The law is not telling people they can't smoke, its saying they can't be a foster parent if they do. Its no different from DUIs. The law doesn't say a person can't drink, only that they can't get behind the wheel if they do. The premise here is that they seem to be trying to prevent someone from harming someone else with their behavior.

Yeah that is true.

I didn't really think of it that way Scott, and I have to agree.

But, just to be difficult, what if foster parents where allowed to smoke as long as they smoked outside while the kids where in bed, being watched by a trusted adult, or at school? After all, a person can drink and call a cab. ;)

Like I said, it depends on the wording of the law.

Now they are taking it a step further and starting a third hand smoke thing just like the second hand smoke.
Third hand smoke is the smoke that is in your clothing, your furniture, your carpeting, etc...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/03/he...moke.html?_r=1

Hmmm I think I may restart the smokers jacket
May be a profitable business when this gets anywhere.

Wow! Okay, that's going a bit far. :(

I'm a smoker, smoke outside, never in front of the kids. But 3rd hand smoke? Really? Wow!

Okay, I guess I'm quitting, tomorrow! :)

I'm so flipping SICK of the non-smokers that are pushing the anti-smoking thing.

There's a clean air act in Minnesota. The only two places I can smoke indoors are at the casino (Indian reservation) and my own home--and in some places, if you rent, you can't even do that.

I go to the casino, and have non-smokers making nasty comments and waving the smoke away, and covering their faces with scarves and giving me dirty looks. I blow the smoke RIGHT at them when that happens.

Look--there's a NON SMOKING section of the casino. Not MY fault it's more crowded there--complain to the manager.

I can't smoke in bars. I can't smoke at work. I can't smoke in government buildings, restaurants, or baseball diamonds. I can't smoke anywhere near a school.

I get that second hand smoke is dangerous, and that while I can be willing to risk my OWN health, I shouldn't risk the health of other people. HOWEVER: I know places that have gone out of business since the smoking ban. Most of those places were bars.

How about making it the choice of the OWNER whether to allow smoking? And how about people taking personal responsibility, and not accepting a job in a smoking establishment if they don't want to deal with it?

EVERY time the TV is on, I hear the commercial about how MN spends $2.2 million dollars on smoking related health care every year. Yeah? So? How much money do they rake IN, with their extra taxes on tobacco?

I just frankly think the whole thing is stupid. As if they're not chronically short on foster parents everywhere, all the time, and now they want to get rid of people who are perfectly able to help kids, but they happen to smoke?

Well, then--to keep it fair, I want people who eat at fast food places to not foster kids, because they're teaching them bad eating habits, and they can go back and sue the state for that. And I want anyone who drinks not to foster, because that's not teaching kids anything good either, and if one of those kids grows up to drink and drive, they can sue the state. And foster parents who play certain sports! While exercise is healthy, games like football and soccer can be DANGEROUS! What if one of those kids grows up to play high school football, is tackled wrong, and breaks his neck, to be paralyzed from the waist down? I mean, he could sue over that!

The PROBLEM is not the smoking. The PROBLEM is that people are too ing quick to sue when anything in their lives isn't perfect. GROW UP! NOTHING is perfect! Be happy you ate dinner every night, and had a roof over your head, and someone to care whether you went to school that day and actually learned something, rather than focusing on the negatives!

Want to know the REAL solution here? Let people choose between having kids stay with a smoker or starving on the street. Betcha they'll take their chances with the lung cancer then, hmm?

Go Syn, GO!