I for one am absolutely sick of these alleged medical facts regarding smoking. These figures they just seem to pull out of the air amaze me, and they never seem to be questioned.

All these thousands of non smokers dropping dead is just laughable, but unfortunately people believe this rubbish spouted by these very anti smokers(medical profession) who seem to have nothing beter to do than find the easy target. I wish they would concentrate on drinkers who cause more trouble in society than smokers could only dream of.

I`m 49 and the significance of that, is i was brought up in the 1960`s, where most adults smoked in the house, and none of my sisters or brothers have experienced any medical problems. In fact i did a survey at our last school reunion of 500 people who are now in there late forties early fifties. I established how many of there parents smoked while growing up, the answer i got was 60% so thats 300. I then asked how many of them had health problems which could be attributed to passive smoking. I also included there brothers or sisters who resided in the same house.

The results where staggering, NOT ONE single person had any health issues. I repeat NOT ONE. So all these people exposed to second hand smoke all there younger lives on a daily basis, NOT ONE person had any health issues.

But we are told by the medical buffoons, that people are dying everyday because of second hand smoke, well not many people died in the sixties because of it., if any at all.

Thanks to Ivan's response to the Velvet Glove, Iron Fist blog I followed the link to 'the Today programme with Simon Clark and Dr Vivienne Nathanson (VN), the head of science and ethics at the BMA
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0174gpq/Today_16_11_2011/
It starts at 1:33:30ish with Simon'

It is interesting how when questioned about levels (23 times as it was then) VN said "of course some people will have very powerful air conditioning on or the windows open and so on, so it won't get to that level"
So is this example the same with the reduced (dubious) 11 times?

VN's 2nd reason for a total ban "It makes it very difficult for the police, how do they work out if the passenger is actually a child?"
I would ask how the police work out if a child sat in the front seat of a car is 12 and over 135cm tall? How do they work out if a child using an adult belt in the back is either 12 or over 135cm tall and if not are they using a booster seat (ignoring the obvious question of how, suddenly at 12 a 100cm tall child no longer needs a booster seat)?

Then the distraction risk as defined in the highway code, without looking it up, covers any conscious distractions, such as eating, drinking, smoking, putting on make-up or reading a map.
When asked about people pulling over and still breaking the law VN said "Yes (agreeing that it would still be illegal under the BMA proposal), but it's unlikely that people would be prosecuted which is what we've seen with mobile phones"
This ignores the fact that is not illegal to use a mobile phone in a car provided you have pulled over and stopped in a safe place. What about a passenger using a mobile phone? Smoking and mobile phones cannot be compared.

The interviewer goes on to ask why if banned in a car, why not in someone's sitting room.
VN said "Partly because people have more choice, apart from children, on whether they go into the home of someone that's a smoker. It's not just children, but other people that are passengers in cars of people who smoke, who don't really have much choice in the matter, including for example vulnerable and disabled adults but also people that don't have their own cars who are dependant on others and that does make a difference."
In the space of a few minutes VN has moved from a ban it for the sake of children but make it a total ban because it would be difficult to police, to ban it because of who might use the car. But don't ban it in the home because, apart from children, people don't have to go into a home.
So what about the children? What if an elderly parent has to come live with us? Her argument for a complete ban in cars gives exactly the reasons for extending it to the home. After all, apart from the kids, no-one has to get into my car.

Reading the full report (http://www.bma.org.uk/images/smokinginvehicles_v3_tcm41-210651.pdf), their own comparisons to recent car legislation really show how this recommendation is likely to go.
Seat belts, an obvious safety measure, are widely accepted, though the 91% of people ("A majority (91 per cent)
also felt that it was the driver’s responsibility to make sure that everyone in their vehicle is wearing a
seat belt.") either did not know the law or were talking should rather than must.
Mobile Phones "the ban on the use of mobile phones while driving was met with greater negative attitudes",
not necessarily such an obvious safety measure but still prosecutable as a distraction prior to specific legislation.
"A 2009 study by the DfT showed that the proportion of motorists using hand-held mobile phones
while driving has increased by 27 per cent since legislation came in to force."

In summary the BMA are a) justifying their funding, b) setting the ground work for further recommendations.
What will they do when smoking is finally illegal? Beyond the strikes at taxes shooting up, will it be car users in general as they seem to be the 2nd easiest target.

In Ontario Canada, we have a smoking ban for cars. It is cars that have kids, used for work, private cars that have advertising for home business (now a commercial vehicle), and cars that may have kids. I have seen smoking happening in all of these vehicles (child seat in car with a smoker, gov't employee that had a cigarette hanging out of their mouth while they waited for light, construction worker getting into the truck while driver lit up, cab driver asking if he could light a cigarette after I got into car (I have a small feel free to smoke button) and he did.

You try to stop someone smoking in their private property and you now have a grey line between when is a car private property (where police have to have a search warrant to search vehicle without probable cause). Now I smoke in my car; if I let my niece in my car how do they know I didn't just put that out or was that a smoke from an hour ago etc.

What if a 15 yr old is smoking with a 21 yr old driving; can the child smoke but not the adult? There is a case where this happened, and the adult got a ticket, in Ontario!

This is a law that doesn't do any good and is not helping children (cause it's not harmful).

PS What is the particle amount in the car without smoking involved? I know that you can get carbon monoxide poisoning with a car with a blocked muffler or bad air with a hole in the muffler. Is it really 11 times or whatever worse due to smoking or is it mostly due to car exhaust? How polluted was the car air without smoking, 3..... 10 ...... times as bad?

I'd venture that this artclie has saved me more time than any other.