Oregon Legislature Criminalizes Smoking in Cars With Kids

June 3, 2013

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Oregon officials have never heard of opening a window to smoke in your car. They just want to control what you can do in your car.
Oregon officials have never heard of opening a window to smoke in your car. They just want to control what you can do in your car.

The Oregon State legislature has sent to the Governor a bill that criminalizes smoking in your car with any child under 18 years old.

Let me repeat. If the Oregon Governor signs this bill you may not participate in a legal activity with yours or anyone else’s kids in your private property with your own children in the car.

This Bloomberg-Democrat-Nanny-State-esque move is brought to you courtesy of the freedom killers in the Oregon Democrat party who believe they know so much better than you do about what you should be able to do while driving your car. It’s a bill that has been trotted out every legislative session for the past few years. 

They believe that you are so stupid, ill informed and discourteous that you won’t turn on a vent, open a window or otherwise think of your children before lighting up in a confined space. 

And like everything else, the criminalization process starts out as a secondary offense,

A police officer could enforce the ban only if the driver had been pulled over for separate traffic violation. A maximum fine for the first offense would be $250.

But like using your cell phone while driving, it soon will become a primary offense. In fact, I would bet the bill is already written.

I’m not a big fan of cigarette smoke, but the basis upon which this decision was made is a faulty one. The only 40 year longitudinal study on second hand smoke conducted by UCLA determined that ‘second hand smoke’ neither contributes to cancer nor heart disease. 

The people who think they’re doing you a favor are really just trying to get inside the cockpit of your car to further dictate what else they’ll allow you to do. And between cell phone use and smoking OSP officers will have near carte blanche to pull you over. 

Welcome to the Terror Dome.