Should smokers be allowed to adopt or foster kids?

[Jabberwocky]

Topic title - "Should smokers be allowed to adopt or foster kids? "

 

Off topic, much?

 

Just a tad, yes but it was salient, I feel.

[Cyclone]

Salient. Okay, who's hijacked Jabberwocky's account, he's never used the word salient in his lifetime and I doubt that he was planning to start today!

[falpere]

There is no error, if there's an identifiable risk then a child shouldn't be placed there.

Which bit of that do you disagree with?

 

Saying that anyone is capable of violence is not identifying a risk, saying that someone smokes and may smoke around a child is a real risk and can be easily avoided.

 

Mojo might be right and maybe interviews could identify which smokers would stop smoking in their own house, but as an executive in child services would you want the risk of being sued in 20 years time by a previously fostered individual who now has lung cancer?

Risk avoidance and minimisation is their duty, and by not placing children with smokers they have completely eliminated one risk.

 

There is a slight error. Smokers who are desperate to addopt or foster can easily lie about their habit.

 

I can see your point about smoking being a health risk to the child. I can honestly say that the majority of parents that smoke (that I know), are aware of the adverse effects to their health, and would not subject their children, or any child in their care, to the harm of smoking. They are aware of the dangers, and know that it is 'their' addiction to a very powerfull drug, which should not be thrust upon anyone else.

 

Smokers are able to see things logicaly as the drug does not bend their minds (Yes it does, I know, but please read on) in the same way as booze.

 

Most smokers will leave a stressfull situation, have a fag and calm their nerves.

 

Drinkers (of booze) are ingesting a seriously mind bending substance, which can put a child in far more danger than a responsible smoker. For this reason I would suggest that a responsible smoker would make a far safer parent than someone who drinks.

 

I think this is what Dragon' was trying to put across.

[Cyclone]

When I was young most working men went to work on a bicycle. Its still possible until one of you bleeding hearts bans them altogether.

 

Did you swap threads somehow?

 

I'm not sure why you think bicycles might be banned though, they should be encouraged. Of course they aren't much use if you don't work in the same city you live in, nor are they pleasant when it's snowing or raining.

[DragonofAna]

Salient. Okay, who's hijacked Jabberwocky's account, he's never used the word salient in his lifetime and I doubt that he was planning to start today!

 

Slightly off topic but I have noticed a few people posting stuff in a manner to which I am not accustomed. People making sense and actually using English properly. It is becoming like an episode of invasion of the body snatchers. Scary stuff. Who will be next?

[Cyclone]

 

The question is - would you prefer to have 50 children in a care home, or 60 children with caring loving parents who may or may not smoke?

 

Ah another false dichotomy. They're popping up thick and fast in this thread.

[DragonofAna]

Thanks for that Falpere. I knew what I was saying. Not my fault if other people cannot understand me ... or maybe it is. Anyhow - not wanting to digress but what you said is exactly what I was trying to say.

[DragonofAna]

Ah another false dichotomy. They're popping up thick and fast in this thread.

 

What? A who in a what?

[rubydazzler]

They worked a treat but I discovered that I enjoyed a cig so I have four or five each day now.

 

Ok to be more accurate they stopped me from smoking but turned me into a foaming lunatic and my OH made me stop the course on pain of divorce but they cut me from being a 40 a day hunk to a four or five a day hunk.

Well done! Next time you try to quit, you'll easily be able to give up 5 a day! And if you need the 'dummy' effect, have you tried one of those artificial fags? They even have pretend smoke! Someone was advertising them on here about the same time. I used to practically eat pencils for a few months after I gave up, or just suck on a little cig holder, sans ciggie. Looked silly, but it helped!

[Jabberwocky]

It neither new nor a fad. Smoking has been a shock horror thing for at least 50 years.

 

 

Obfustication of the issue. That you consider other problems to be important in no way absolves smoking from being a real problem.

 

Some people do fall for smoking. And, yes, it is a tragedy. Well said!

 

 

It's neither hysteria nor ridiculous. Anyone taking up smoking in the last 50 years, since the health risks were identified; now that's ridiculous.

 

 

Don't hold your breath. Especially if your lungs are full of smoke.

 

In 1974 my mother was hospitalised because they thought she had TB. The docs at the Hospital allowed her to smoke because it would , in their words "Help her to cough up the junk on her chest" and doctors very rarely mentioned smoking as being THAT harmfull in the early 70s, it only became seen as very harmful in the late 70s when the "NSM" cigs were developed to try to wean people away from them. As late as the mid 80s it was allowed to smoke in hospitals.

 

Smoking IS a real problem, I agree, and so is the hysteria surrounding it, it`s a plant thats being slowly burned, not a nuclear device being detonated.

 

50 years mentioned again... trust me on this, Ive been there for that 50 years and its only been really noted as harmful for about 35 at the most and treated like a potential end to western civillization for the past 10.

 

Seriously there are real things in the world to worry about and I truly envy anyone who has the time to be able to treat this hatred of smoking hobby/fad/gimmick as deadly serious.