"Smoking kills 1000's of children each year, (mainly due to respiratory infections), and is also a major factor in SIDS. Smoking also causes millions of medical problems in children every year ranging from asthma attacks  to ear aches, so protecting young children from the effects of tobacco smoke is long overdue," says Banzhaf.

"A lot of people now consider smoking around children to be one of the most dangerous and prevalent forms of child abuse, so it should not come as a surprise to anyone that a adoption agency would want to protect children bearing in mind that they owe both a legal (fiduciary) duty and a moral obligation to these children."

So it would clearly not be unreasonable for a social welfare agency or the government to adopt rules that would not permit adoptions where one or both prospective parents smokes, and therefore is probably addicted to nicotine. For the very same reasons, a welfare agency might not wish to place a child with a person who has a history of addiction to illegal drugs or alcohol, even if that person promises to change his/her behavior as a condition of becoming an adoptive parent.


If there was a violation of these rules after a child had been placed for adoption, or if the smoker simply decided to begin smoking within the family home after adoption became final, it would very difficult as well as expensive for the social welfare agency to then try remove the child from the home.

"If a natural mother or father  of a child can lose custody by endangering the welfare of a child by smoking in the child's presence, it should not come as a surprise that smoking should be seen as a barrier to an adoption.

If one or both of the adoptive parents continues to smoke then child is also substantially more likely to become a smoker in later even if the parent/s never smoke in the child's presence, and the child is also substantially more likely to lose the smoking parent prematurely.

Kite flying is very popular in Thailand, where the air always seems to be filled with a wonderful variety of kites during the springtime. Kite fighting is a major league sport in Thailand.

We don't really know how cricket originated but there are 2 theories that seem to make some sense. There is also a reference in the household accounts of King Edward I in 1300 of a game much like cricket being played in Kent.