In California was signed a bill that prohibits smoking in cars if there the children under the age of 18 are present. This law will get legal force starting with the next year.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed this bill on Wednesday. A report of the Harvard School of Public Health said that secondhand smoke in a car can be up to 10 times more dangerous than secondhand smoke in a home.

Those who will not respect this rule will be fined with up to 100$.

Public reactions related to the new bill are different. Some support this bill, because children must be protected from exposure of the tobacco smoke, because secondhand smoking is more dangerous than firsthand one.

Robert Best of Ventura, the state coordinator of the Smoker’s Club Inc., representative of smokers’ rights group asks what the state is to tell you how you can and cannot bring your children up. “There’s a fine line between protecting my child and moving in to raise my child,” added Best. “A car is private property. ... What will they do next; say you can’t smoke in your home if you have kids in it?”

Walter Williams, a conservative commentator is another opponent of the bill. He said that even smoking is bad for health, especially for children, “it isn’t the government’s job to stop people from doing it”.

Another comment offers Williams, an economics professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. “If we justify things on the basis of what’s good for people, there’s no end in sight.”

Jacqueline Wilson, 18, of Oakland, smoker, thinks government should butt out. “I think that’s government stepping in on family matters,” she said.

Critics bring a classification for this state-care, calling it “nanny government.”

Banning of smoking in the cars was passed or is still discussed by a list of states, as Arkansas, Louisiana and Puerto Rico, Bangor, Maine, Arizona, Illinois, Massachusetts, Montana and Utah.