Mother launches petition to stop smoking in public parks and playgrounds

The government has brought bans to enclosed public spaces and cars with children in – but not to playgrounds meant for kids

More young women are smoking, as the rate of young male smokers continues to drop (Getty)

A petition has been launched to try and ban people from smoking in parks.

Despite growing evidence of the dangers of secondhand smoke, and a ban in every enclosed public space, it is still legal to smoke in most public parks and playgrounds. But one woman has launched a petition try and bring the ban to public playgrounds, arguing that smoking in them can damage children's health.

Annie Dressner said that she had been inspired to launch the petition after a woman started smoking near her and her son in a public park. Despite Ms Dressner saying that she would rather she didn’t, the woman continued to smoke, Ms Dressner wrote in the description of her petition.

“Yesterday a woman asked if it would bother me if she smoked in the playground while on the seesaw with her young daughter,” she wrote in the petition’s description. “When I said it would bother me, she told me that my one year old son would turn out to be "arrogant" and smoked anyway.”

Ms Dressner said that she was worried not only about secondhand smoke, where the chemicals from a cigarette are breathed in by people around them – which poses a special problem for children because their airways and lungs are less developed. She was also looking to limit the danger posed by thirdhand smoke.

“Thirdhand smoke is the smoke that is leftover as residue on surfaces,” she wrote in the description. “If, for example, someone is smoking on a seesaw, the dangerous chemicals from that smoke will then be touched and possibly ingested by the children who will next use that playground equipment.

“Dogs are banned from kids' parks. Smoke should also be banned in and near them.”

Ms Dressner said that she wasn’t looking to ban smoking from all public areas, and didn’t think that would be right. She said that play areas and parks are different because they are made for children and so could pose an extra danger, she said.

“I just feel the majority of people with children, even those who smoke, wouldn’t want it in a playground,” she told Cambridge News.

Ms Dressner grew up in New York, where smoking is already banned in public parks.

The petition has already picked up over 1,000 signatures. When it reaches 10,000 then the government will have to respond to it, and at 100,000 it will be considered for debate in parliament.

Similar bans have already been put in place for adults smoking in cars with children under 18. That followed the 2007 ban of smoking in enclosed public places like bars and restaurants.