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Some kids can get addicted from 2nd hand smoke & suffer withdrawal symptoms if they go too long without it. Maybe it's cruel to force withdrawal symptoms on people of any age. And smoking parents wonder why great fun should be limited to those 18+ when the minimum age law was never enforced 30 years ago. If a kid asks smoking parent(s) if they can try one, how do they decide what age, since it's unlikely a police officer or CPS will just pop in at any moment?
Govt has decided for business owners on smoking policy. Wonder what most think about that?
I fear a day when tobacco use is prohibited in 99% of outdoor places *and* in vehicles. Imagine a smoker driving down an interstate & they see a sign "Next designated smoking area 100 miles". Imagine the extreme dangerous speeding! With kids in the car! The unintended consequences must be thought about.
But I am much more pro-cannabis as safe, healthy & still much good feelings. Still, 42% want cannabis illegal & only 22% want the much more harmful tobacco to be illegal. Sense could come soon as I think VT soon legalizes MJ, along with rest of new England.
I am not sure how people can't control themselves? I know people who are alcoholics but at night and on the weekends, they function in an 8-10 hour day without it. Theirs is an addiction as well, so where do we draw the line? Just because a cigarette can't alter your state-of-mind like alcohol can, it has been made acceptable to smoke on breaks at work.
A speeding car, that just seems absurd. If you are out in the open away from people then smoke away, I get irritated and could probably smell it 5 miles away but that is me. It has dissipated enough probably not to be harmful. I don't think you should smoke with your children in the vehicle even with a window down. Period. Have a little self-control.
Smoker parents should tell their children never to smoke, not contemplate on when they should allow them to try it! They should say this is a very bad and dangerous habit and I never want you to smoke. Both of my parents were smokers and I loathe it! They would have never said ok, here, try it, if I was under 18. If a kid asks, you say NO. That seems like common sense to me. If you were smoking a joint and they ask would you give that to them too? It is called being a responsible parent, we should lead by example but even when we don't we should guide our children in the right direction. Why would you want your child to pick up a habit that you have that can kill them? Why not give them a loaded gun to play with. Same difference.
I think there are for more reasons to ban cigarettes and make cannabis legal, at least it actually helps people and doesn't kill them.
The ancients Greeks said there were two basic rules in life: "Know thyself," and "Nothing to extreme." As a rule, we don't think of whether we might get addicted to something. The body can get addicted to caffeine, and it's harder to break than the addiction to nicotine. Its only saving grace is that caffeine addiction doesn't have the social costs that many other addictions do, but it is an addiction, and it can be quite harmful.
I've wondered if it would be possible to have addiction screenings for ten-year-olds. If the technology existed, a kid at that age could be told if he/she had a tendency to become addicted to specific substance or substances. In adolescence, faced with family dynamic or peer pressures to try smoking, beer, etc., the kid would be equipped with foreknowledge which might lead to a sound decision.
Of course, there are a couple of possible downsides to this: kids dismissed as doomed to be druggies, based on their scores, kids who blithely take up smoking because they've been told they're likely to become alcoholics. . . Just as well the technology doesn't exist!
We don't have unlimited law enforcement resources. Which would you rather see? A cop spending time cruising downtown areas where drug dealers hang out, or spending 20 minutes writing up / explaining this new law to someone? Pick one.
Since the town gets to keep 50% of ticket revenue, I'd bet heavily on door #2. The motherload is speeding, no seat belt, and smoking with a kid in the back seat. That pays 3 or 4 hours of cop salary and the cop car.
But I am much more pro-cannabis as safe, healthy & still much good feelings. Still, 42% want cannabis illegal & only 22% want the much more harmful tobacco to be illegal. Sense could come soon as I think VT soon legalizes MJ, along with rest of new England.
This is a bit off-topic but my personal objection to marijuana legalization is the inevitable implied consent law that entitles a policeman to vampire blood out of my arm for a marijuana blood test. Unlike alcohol, there is no available equivalent of a breathalyzer. If my eyes are bloodshot because I've been swimming in a chlorinated pool, I really don't want that to become probable cause for a drug test.
I view tobacco as yet another poor people's tax. Affluent, educated people rarely smoke. 30% of people on Medicaid smoke. 25% of high school dropouts smoke. 5% of people with graduate degrees smoke. Every 10-year-old in the country certainly knows that cigarette smoking is bad for you. I don't think there is a solution to the problem. You can't stop people from making bad decisions.
In the 1970's, tobacco companies pulled their TV ads off the air because the FCC had ruled that broadcasters had to give opponents equal time for anti-tobacco ads. The opposition was so effective, the companies decided to advertise where a Fairness Doctrine couldn't be applied. They have since flooded stores, billboards and periodicals with very clever advertising.
For a decade, children most readily recognized the cartoon character Joe Camel. When you consider what sort of competition Mickey Mouse ought to be, that's very, very effective advertising.
Consider that the average person sees some 500 advertisements a day, and every one of them has the same message: "I'm beautiful; you're ugly. Buy this." Kids swim in a sea of information telling them that it's cool to smoke and drink-- how can you counter that? They want to know what it's like to be a cool grown-up, just like the people on TV.
And lower income people who don't have the money to get the nice car, the nice house and a pleasant life will spend what little they have in an attempt to tell themselves that they're just as good as those people on TV.
The media world is the ocean, and kids and the poor are the fish that swim in it. The only reason they make "bad" decisions is that for them, it is their way of striving for success.
In the 1970's, tobacco companies pulled their TV ads off the air because the FCC had ruled that broadcasters had to give opponents equal time for anti-tobacco ads. The opposition was so effective, the companies decided to advertise where a Fairness Doctrine couldn't be applied. They have since flooded stores, billboards and periodicals with very clever advertising.
For a decade, children most readily recognized the cartoon character Joe Camel. When you consider what sort of competition Mickey Mouse ought to be, that's very, very effective advertising.
Consider that the average person sees some 500 advertisements a day, and every one of them has the same message: "I'm beautiful; you're ugly. Buy this." Kids swim in a sea of information telling them that it's cool to smoke and drink-- how can you counter that? They want to know what it's like to be a cool grown-up, just like the people on TV.
And lower income people who don't have the money to get the nice car, the nice house and a pleasant life will spend what little they have in an attempt to tell themselves that they're just as good as those people on TV.
The media world is the ocean, and kids and the poor are the fish that swim in it. The only reason they make "bad" decisions is that for them, it is their way of striving for success.
And those people will NEVER have that money if they keep shelling hundreds of dollars a month on cancer sticks. But then they only have themselves to blame.
It's family values, Oriz! A woman on welfare in Burlington won $14 million in the lottery back around 2000. Ten years later she was broke and facing foreclosure on the $250,000 house she had bought. "I've been poor before, and I can be poor again," she was quoted.
Kids learn what it takes to be successful and when they see that their parents manage to survive without managing their meager resources, they are acquiring a family value: if you blow your money and still have food and a roof over your head, you're a success., and if you ever come into money, you might as well spend it now because lifelong experience shows it isn't going to last.
Only one-third of the kids born into poverty manage to escape it; somehow, they re-define for themselves what success is. I think it comes from going to school and seeing that other kids live differently.
On the other hand, low-income people are much more charitable than high-income people are! They have a few extra bucks and a friend is in need, they give it away because they're used to not having it.
We are considered low-income. My husband is a teacher, we all know how much they make. Here is a little less than up North because the cost of living is a little less. We do not have a lot of money each month to just blow but our bills are paid. Right now in the situation we are in this is ok for me. Our children do not go without, we always manage to make everything work. It will not always be this way.
I'm chuckling as I write this because my kids don't even get that we are technically considered poor folks. We teach our children the value of a dollar even though sometimes they, like most kids, seem a bit ungrateful at times. We teach them to help other people. I have donated the last $10 I have before because in that instant I was much better off than the person I was helping. I, with a couple of friends, organized a day and a half after the tornado in Joplin, Missouri two car loads full of items and things people needed by just making phone calls and going to stores and asking for donations. I was a full-time college student my husband was teaching as an adjunct at our local university. We did not have the extra money even in gas, but I went several times a week for months and we were able to make it happen. Even living on the tight budget we were we made it work for us because we were much better off than these people in Joplin.
Life is what you make it, it really and truly is. Will our finances always be as such, no. He will finish his Master's, I will finish my degree, we will make it through all this medical stuff and all the while sacrificing to give our kids a good education. Education is key and important in our home. Smokers should be ashamed of spending 100's of dollars on cigarettes a month and letting their kids go with out. It is all a matter of perspective and priorities. Even with an addiction, you can choose to change. Most low-income are uneducated, do not see anything wrong with living the way they do, and do not teach their children any better. I feel sorry for those kids.
We do not have a lot, but by God what we do have is love, we can teach our children that life isn't always going to be fair, to get an education, to find something you love doing and can make a decent living, to start saving early, to treat others kindly even if they aren't always kind to you. We are teaching our children to be good people and good men, because someday they are going to be husbands and fathers. None of this costs money, to want better for children and to teach them the right things in life doesn't cost a dime.
My husband is very educated, speaks 5 languages, 4 fluently, could teach many subjects, and is multi-talented. He doesn't have the greatest opinion of himself but he is super smart, in a lot of subjects, a good man. A WONDERFUL teacher even though he hates teaching at the high school level. Education is number one in our house. We aren't those crazed straight A crazy parents, we know what their best is and we expect that, they are all three very bright and all on the honor roll, even if there might be a B in there somewhere. They will go far in life, and I think they will be fine young men. I am proud of that, I do not care what my bank account says.
Life is what you make it, choose what is best for your kids even if it inconveniences you! Love them more than you love yourself! And this is why I am willing to move nearly 2,000 miles if my son is accepted into St. J Academy...because I know that school can open so many doors for my children! I will work 3 jobs if I have to. Hopefully, I can finish my degree before my son finishes his degree in college...this makes me laught a lot. My kids come first, but I will finish! No matter what! They know I will finish, they know how hard I work to take care of them, and my husband and how much I have sacrificed to show them how important college and a good education is and I am POOR! So what is your excuse? Pick your kids above your own selfish needs and vices and get over yourself. All I really want to say is grow up! Seriously.
I have a feeling you're going to be a great fit in the community life of St. Johnsbury!
A friend of mine did his practice teaching a high school and declared, "All they think about is their bodies!" I once did a Red Cross first aid course one morning for a classroom of fourth and fifth graders and knew I'd never, ever take up teaching.
People who are opposed to their school district budget should spend a day teaching. If they don't change their mind about how important, how necessary and how complicated education is, they should be taken out and shot.
I grew up in a family that had middle class values but near-poverty-level income. Lot of kids, and my folks used to hit the vegetable stands to buy their gone-by produce at half price. My mom once experimented making a meat loaf with dog food. Fortunately, the house across the street caught fire, and the meat loaf got ruined in the excitement. Neither of my parents ever made it a point to build up their status at the expense of someone lower on the social ladder. My dad was approached by some of his friends who invited him to help run a really dysfunctional family out of the village. Even though their kids used to beat up us kids, he refused.
When I got involved in political science in college, I found out how easy it is to distract the near-poor from realizing their plight by offering to them the actually poor as targets. That's one of the big reasons I like living in Vermont-- a whole lot of people don't try to make themselves feel better by dumping on people poorer than they.
I have a feeling you're going to be a great fit in the community life of St. Johnsbury!
A friend of mine did his practice teaching a high school and declared, "All they think about is their bodies!" I once did a Red Cross first aid course one morning for a classroom of fourth and fifth graders and knew I'd never, ever take up teaching.
People who are opposed to their school district budget should spend a day teaching. If they don't change their mind about how important, how necessary and how complicated education is, they should be taken out and shot.
I grew up in a family that had middle class values but near-poverty-level income. Lot of kids, and my folks used to hit the vegetable stands to buy their gone-by produce at half price. My mom once experimented making a meat loaf with dog food. Fortunately, the house across the street caught fire, and the meat loaf got ruined in the excitement. Neither of my parents ever made it a point to build up their status at the expense of someone lower on the social ladder. My dad was approached by some of his friends who invited him to help run a really dysfunctional family out of the village. Even though their kids used to beat up us kids, he refused.
When I got involved in political science in college, I found out how easy it is to distract the near-poor from realizing their plight by offering to them the actually poor as targets. That's one of the big reasons I like living in Vermont-- a whole lot of people don't try to make themselves feel better by dumping on people poorer than they.
Well, that just made me smile, thank you.
High school is not even what it was when I was in HS and I graduated in 1997. The parents do not have their children take any accountability most of the time. While the HS he taught for in our town had much more structure and discipline than the school in Martha's Vineyard it was still a torture for him. He wants his classroom like that of a college, you are rude, you can get out. Which I understand. The kids who don't care disrupt everything for the kids who care. I have wondered if a private school would be more structured than a public HS. He loved teaching at the University, and his students loved him, HS and college students. He has a lot to offer these kids and adults he just can't deal with the ones that are jerks who do not care and their parents do not care so school has become like a day care for these kids.
I laughed so hard about the meatloaf! I am glad for the fire too, I just hope everyone was ok. We, honestly, do not buy very much hamburger, it is super expensive and fatty and we can cook some kind of pasta dish or something healthier and the kids love it.
All my husband and I are looking for is a peaceful life, we have had the crappiest last two years. A place to call HOME, we are simple people looking for a simple life.
There will always be one bad apple in the barrel, or two or three. I either repsect them and agree to disagree or ignore them all together. I am getting too old to care for people who don't care for me or anyone else. Life is too short!
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We teach our children the value of a dollar even though sometimes they, like most kids, seem a bit ungrateful at times. We teach them to help other people. I have donated the last $10 I have before because in that instant I was much better off than the person I was helping. I, with a couple of friends, organized a day and a half after the tornado in Joplin, Missouri two car loads full of items and things people needed by just making phone calls and going to stores and asking for donations. I was a full-time college student my husband was teaching as an adjunct at our local university. We did not have the extra money even in gas, but I went several times a week for months and we were able to make it happen. Even living on the tight budget we were we made it work for us because we were much better off than these people in Joplin. 
