As a parent, your primary concern is your child’s safety. While you may be well aware of the risks of secondhand smoke to your child, you can’t always control your child’s other parent’s behavior, and the implications of this bad behavior may have been diminished by the family law judge, until now.
Illinois has finally passed a law to help provide additional protection for your child. With the passing of House Bill 2276, it is now illegal to smoke in a vehicle with a child. While this law falls under the Illinois Vehicle Code and makes it a violation to “inhale, exhale, burn, or carry a lighted cigarette, cigar, pipe, weed, plant, regulated narcotic, or other combustible substance.” The violation of this rule is a monetary fine, but the potential implications do not stop there. Evidence that your child’s other parent is smoking in the vehicle with your child may have the added consequences for that other parent when the family court Judge is evaluating visitation and custody. For more information on how the new law might impact your case, please speak with our experienced family law attorneys at Abramovitch, Blalock & Mckinnon.
The full text of the new law can be found at http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/publicacts/fulltext.asp?Name=101-0468
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