ibrary services, or health care to children.15
States are beginning to follow the lead of the federal government. After learning that smoking in a vehicle is 23 times more toxic than in a house and 8.5 times more toxic than in an aircraft because of the smaller enclosed space, Colorado state Senator Dorothy Rupert (Democrat from Boulder) filed a bill to impose a $56 fine on adults caught smoking in a car where a child under age 16 is present.16While some commentators attacked the bill as being an example of excessive governmental intervention in people’s lives—or “stupid purity legislation”17—others, such as Dr Frank Judson, director of the Public Health Department in Denver, Colorado, predicted that the bill will raise the consciousness of parents who smoke.18 Dr Judson described smoking in a car as “putting your kids in a tobacco smoke chamber.”18
Although Glantz correctly noted that the tobacco control community in the United States “should redouble our efforts to enact local clean indoor air ordinances and repeal preemption in the states that have it”,19 tobacco control advocates around the world must also explore practical ways in which their societies can protect children from the demonstrable and unnecessary harm caused by exposure to ETS in the home. Homes with children need to become smoke-free zones. Part of the answer is educating parents and other adults about the risks ETS poses to children. As recent legal developments demonstrate, regulation of such conduct in the home may eventually be required.