Group seeks to limit smoking

Law would prohibit drivers from lighting up with kids in car

By Rob Carson | The News Tribune • Published January 04, 2009

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Give Heidi Henson a badge and a police cruiser, and there's little doubt what she'd do.

"Every time I see a parent smoking while driving with kids in the car, I want to pull them over and talk to them about the dangers of secondhand smoke," said Henson, the tobacco-cessation coordinator at the MultiCare health network and a member of the Tobacco Advisory Board of Pierce County.

"They need to know it's not OK to poison children," she said.

Washington smokers, harried from one sanctuary to another during the past few years, soon might lose one of their last remaining safe spots to light up.

Anti-smoking groups and health officials are rounding up sponsors for a bill in the upcoming legislative session that would outlaw smoking in vehicles when children are passengers.

Tests have shown air pollution in smokers' cars can reach levels nearly 10 times the hazardous levels set by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Studies also suggest that children are more at risk than adults for adverse health effects of secondhand smoke, including ear infections, asthma and bronchitis.

Secondhand smoke contains more than 250 chemicals known to be toxic or cancer-causing, including formaldehyde, benzene, vinyl chloride, arsenic, ammonia and hydrogen cyanide, according to a 2006 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services report.

"We know how damaging it is and how dangerous it is," Henson said. "Can you choose to kill children? They are prisoners in your car."

In September, the Tacoma/Pierce County Board of Health passed a resolution encouraging people to refrain from smoking in vehicles occupied by children, becoming the first health board in the state to take a formal stand on the issue.

The health board subsequently launched a public education campaign warning about the dangers of smoking in cars, including print advertisements, signs on buses and, starting Friday, television spots on local Comcast channels.

But backers of the proposed law say education is not enough.

"Some people, you can't reach unless you have a law," said Leonard Sanderson, a member of the Tobacco Advisory Board and a former mayor of Milton. "They're just going to do it anyway."

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