Wednesday, April 2, 2008

New Nanny State Health Fear: Tanning Beds

Maryland legislators cry: "won't someone think of the children?"

By Marc Kilmer

Categories: Maryland

With budget problems looming in the state, Maryland state senators decided their time was best spent approving a measure to protect minors from the scourge of tanning beds. One legislator gave his colleagues a medical lesson in his attempts to promote the bill: "Skin cancer is serious. It can kill you." Apparently if skin cancer was funny but could still kill you it would not merit legislative action.

Under the bill, minors could only use artificial tanning devices with signed parental consent. Predictably, this was too lenient for some:

"This bill is child abuse," said Sen. Delores G. Kelley, a Baltimore County Democrat. "It would be the equivalent of a parent being able to take your 12-year-old to the liquor store and sign for them to have liquor."

Next up for the Maryland Senate: a bill to prohibit minors from going outside on sunny days without signed parental permission.