Feature Article

Tobacco Public Policy Center law clerk Erica Gartner has been researching and writing about the impact of smoking on children in foster homes. Below is a brief summary of her findings:

Secondhand smoke is particularly dangerous to young children - "captive smokers" who do not understand the risks of secondhand smoke and cannot control their own environments. In children, secondhand smoke is a contributing cause of asthma, bronchitis, ear infections, hearing loss, low birth weight, pneumonia, sudden infant death syndrome and other respiratory illnesses. The adverse health effects can linger past childhood as well; the EPA has linked secondhand smoke to decreased lung function and an increased potential for lung cancer later in life. Secondhand smoke has also been found to be neurotoxic at extremely low levels, meaning that it impairs learning ability.

Children exposed to secondhand smoke include an unknown number of the 523,000 children nationwide living in foster care. The majority of children in foster care come into the system as a result of abuse or neglect. Many of these children already suffer from physical, mental and/or emotional problems and have special needs. (A 1998 study found that a 27.4% of foster children aged zero to six already suffered from respiratory illnesses.) Because of their unique place in society, foster children are afforded rights that perhaps surpass those of natural-born children because of the significant interest in keeping them safe from harm and providing them with a permanent, stable environment. The government is responsible for protecting children in its care, and it fails to perform this duty if it knowingly places foster children in a home where they are likely to suffer injury or illness.

Recognizing their responsibility to protect foster children from foreseeable harm, seven states have passed laws limiting the exposure of children to secondhand smoke. At least twelve more states are considering adopting such regulations. At the local level, at least three counties in California have adopted smokefree policies for foster homes. The rules vary in their specifics. For example, Washington State's law broadly prohibits smoking "in [the] living space of any home/facility caring for children," while Arkansas's law more narrowly prohibits smoking in the same room as a foster child under 30 months of age.

Considering the clear scientific evidence demonstrating the health risks of secondhand smoke to children and the special vulnerability of foster children, the federal government should use its authority to bring uniformity to this field and protect all foster children from exposure to secondhand smoke. There are clear costs - physical, developmental, and financial - associated with exposing foster children to secondhand smoke in the home. Professor John Banzhaf of Action on Smoking and Health has estimated that the medical and drug related costs borne by taxpayers can amount to "hundreds of millions of dollars" for children in foster care who fall ill due to secondhand smoke exposure. And although more research needs to be done in the area, existing evidence suggests that that states restricting smoking around foster children have not had any more difficultly recruiting foster parents. To the contrary, anecdotal reports suggest that such policies have been welcomed and recognized as overdue.

The federal government has the authority and the ability to protect foster children around the country from dangerous and entirely avoidable exposure to secondhand smoke. Children in foster care often fall through the cracks of a system that is poorly funded and overburdened. Prohibiting smoking in homes where they are supposed to be sheltered from abuse and neglect is a simple, low-cost measure that will promote the health and well-being of foster children.