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  • 2016-05-24 (xsd:date)
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  • Is Smoking in Cars with Children Illegal as of January 30, 2018? (en)
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  • In February 2018, a post on the photo sharing web site LoveThisPic.com conveyed an announcement that smoking in cars when children are present is illegal thanks to a law that became effective on 30 January 2018: Insofar as it gives the impression that there exists a nationwide ban on smoking in cars with children, the post is wholly incorrect. Some state and local governments have instituted such a ban, but no such statute exists in federal law. Shifting to the state and local level, we were unable to find any announcements of smoking bans in vehicles with minor passengers going into effect on 30 January 2018. However, we did find that a legislative bill passed in the Alabama House of Representatives on that date would, if it becomes law, institute such a ban in that state. Much of the content in the LoveThisPic.com post was taken from a Yahoo! article reporting on the passage of the bill and exploring the larger issue of smoking prohibitions. To be clear, the proposed Alabama ban did not go into effect on 30 January 2018, and won't go into effect until and unless the bill becomes law. Another false report of a ban on smoking in cars with minors present appeared in May 2016 on the web site Now8News: There was a whole lot wrong with this article; namely that it originated with Now8News, a fake news site that masquerades as a local television news site while publishing fabricated clickbait stories; that the article text makes no mention of where the referenced smoking ban is supposed to take place; and that the article is simply a republication of a previous hoax with the year updated from 2015 to 2016. The basis of the original Now8News article was a report of a vehicle smoking ban enacted in England and Wales in 2015. (en)
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