First of all - I agree 110% with everything that Glam has written.
Secondly - I am reading some of these posts and thinking "what planet do you live on??" Because here on earth, smoking happens.
Not in my house it doesnt. Nor at the restaurants, shops, or at most places actually. Its illegal to smoke in your car with underagers too.
It is legal (after a certain age), and every individual has a choice of whether they want to do it or not. Same with everything else. You can drink alcohol. Or not. Your choice. You can eat junk food. Or not. Etc. Just because someone doesn't like something, or thinks that something doesn't sit right within their moral compass, does not make that certain something any less real.
It might be "real", but its still crap. Smoking is smelly, disgusting and a MAJOR health risk, that happens to be highly addictive. Every individual DOES NOT HAVE CHOICE....it is ILLEGAL for a lot of them, esp with second hand smoking. And especially very young impressionable kids. Are we really supposed to cater to a minority group at school, and give smoking even more exposure to kids????
It is still going to happen. So how is ignoring it and pretending that it doesn't happen help??
(Which is what I read these posts as suggeting - don't allow smoking at any costs and punish those who do = those who do smoke will just pretend that they don't do it and keep on doing it anyway in secret.)
Good, let them. Why should my kids be more exposed to it?? Its hard enought to parent teens, but to a have a SCHOOL throw it back in your face and say "Too bad, we'll let them smoke here if you wont let them at home" seems absurd!!!
I say good on the school - seeing a problem and tackling it in a realistic way. Prohibition is an old fashioned law that has never worked (banning alcohol or drugs or sex never stopped the practice, so why are people still thinking that prohibiting people to do something that they want to do is actually going to stop them doing it??)
Riiight, because kids are all at school shagging on the oval and drinking in the canteen.... it seems to work from where I sit....
Another thing I don't get is: how does "allowing" something to happen equal "promoting" it? I would say it's the opposite - allowing something takes away that forbidden taboo factor that draws so many teenagers to do stupid things.
Becasue my kids have NO acces to that crap here.. but if its allowed at school, they can happily take up smoking, right in front the teachers.... atm they would have to sneak off with others, which is much harder, and something I dont think my kids would do.. but if a mate can just pull out a pack, and pass them round... of course more kids are going to try, AND get addicted....
People will do what they want to do and not allowing them simply drives the behaviour underground, leading to danger (e.g. kids going out of school grounds to smoke and getting hit by cars, or abducted, or worse...)