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Should smoking be banned in cars with kids?
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A Georgia state representative has introduced legislation that would outlaw smoking in a car carrying a child. No other state has such a law, but across the country, smoking is being banned in restaurants, bars, public buildings and jails. Has the crusade against smoking gone too far, or are laws needed to protect people from secondhand smoke? Maryland State Sen. Ida Ruben and Jerry Taylor of the Cato Institute stepped into the "Crossfire" with hosts Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala to debate the issue. CARLSON: Ida Ruben ... let's be upfront about this, this is really about telling people what to do with their private lives. You know how I know that? Because the number of children killed by smoking in cars stands at precisely zero. The number of children killed or injured by air bags stands in the dozens in just over the last five years. If you really cared about protecting kids in cars, you'd ban air bags, wouldn't you? RUBEN: Not necessarily, no. Because I'm trying to save lives -- I'm trying to prevent ... CARLSON: Kids have been killed by air bags, and none have been killed by cigarettes. RUBEN: That's not true. You have defects in children from parents smoking. You have lots of illnesses in children growing up because they've been exposed to the carcinogens in tobacco. I think it's important for us to do everything we can to prevent these deaths. And there are thousands every year. BEGALA: And in fact, Mr. Taylor, when used appropriately, air bags save lives. When used appropriately, cigarettes kill, that's the difference. Let me read you the statistics about secondhand smoke on children from the American Cancer Society: "One hundred and fifty thousand to 300,000 lower respiratory tract infections in children younger than 18 months of age. Increases in the number and severity of asthma attacks in about 200,000 to 1 million asthmatic children. Increases in cases of middle ear inflammation and fluid buildup in young children of smokers." This is poison. Why would you want to allow parents to poison their kids? TAYLOR: Well, there are certainly modest respiratory problems that occur when kids are exposed to secondhand smoke. BEGALA: Modest compared to problems somebody else has? Any respiratory problem a kid has is not very modest. TAYLOR: The point is that kids only spend about 5 percent of their time in the car. If you're really concerned about this, what you need to do is ban smoking around kids in the home. That's where they are most of the time. And if you want to go there, you may as well ban swimming pools. Three hundred and fifty kids a year die in swimming pools every year. BEGALA: They can be used safely. Cigarettes can't. TAYLOR: Two hundred and fifty kids die on bicycles every year, and several hundred kids a year die because parents undercook food. They give them salmonella or E. coli poisoning. And if you are really concerned about child safety, why don't we make it [a crime] to undercook food? BEGALA: Because again, bicycles and swimming pools and hamburgers can be used effectively. Cigarettes kill, period. Period. CARLSON: I think that's a really interesting point, children do, as Mr. Taylor said, spend the vast majority of the time in the home. And with parents that smoke, that's the primary place they're getting secondhand smoke. Why not ban it in the home? RUBEN: Because someone's home is their private place. CARLSON: Your car's not? RUBEN: The car is, yes, but I will tell you that ... CARLSON: Well, yes or no, is it or not? RUBEN: A car is not private if you have a child in there, no. CARLSON: Why is that -- how is that -- wait, wait, then why is a house ... private? RUBEN: If I had my way, they wouldn't smoke in the home, either. CARLSON: So you would make that illegal if you could? RUBEN: If I could, but I can't. And I'm aware of that. BEGALA: What about other forms of poison. Should parents be able to slip a little bit of strychnine or arsenic into the kid's Juicy Juice? Or is the difference here just the delivery device? TAYLOR: Parents continually slip E. coli and salmonella into children. BEGALA: Not intentionally. TAYLOR: But it still kills hundreds every year. Again, if you want to save children from negligent parents, accredit parents and make sure they go to cooking classes. I don't think you would want to do that, but that would save a lot more children than what you're talking about. BEGALA: You didn't answer my question. You would not -- even the Cato Institute would not allow parents the personal freedom to slowly poison their children with other means and methods would you? TAYLOR: No, clearly there is a ... BEGALA: So you prefer poisoning children through smoking. So the only difference is the delivery device. You put them in a tiny enclosed place. A car is smaller than a house. The smoke can't dissipate in a car like it can in a house. TAYLOR: There's obviously a threshold in which we don't allow parents to put their kids at risk. But the risk here is trivial. The World Health Organization, in a study published by the "Journal of the National Cancer Institute," found that there was no correlation between exposure to secondhand smoke in children and lung cancer risk. What they did find ... were ear infections and temporary respiratory problems. Bad things, but there are a lot worse things, including the kind of things I've talked about. CARLSON: Let me suggest the real difference ... is that upper-middle-class yuppies don't generally smoke. That's for working-class people. They do, however, watch television. And they allow their kids to watch a lot of television. ... RUBEN: When we're talking about smoking, I think every parent has the right to know what's good and bad for their children. This is one way to tell them. And the educational forum [shows] that it is bad for their kids. It's bad for people in this country. And wherever we can prevent smoking where it is harmful, we should.
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