Lawmakers are trying to increase the legal smoking age from 18 to 21 because they believe that by doing so will help pervent younger teens who are not of age from getting their hands on cigarettes. They believe that those who are not of age are getting them from their freinds how just truned the legal age of 18. They also believe that by increasing the age, it will lower the amount of adults who smoke caused by addiction.
I personally don't think them it will make a difference in the amounts of adults that are addicted to smoking, but I do agree with the age increase. I honestly think that they should make it the same legal age as drinking. Smoking is a bad habbit and can be very harmful in the long term. It is very important that we try to find a way in which with can help pervent the spread of cigarettes amoung the young teens. If it is beielve that by increasing the legal smoking age will help, then count me in! I'm personally 19 years old and I would not mind it one bit if the lawmakers were to decide to bring up the age. I'm not a smoker, but even if I was... what would a couple more years do? I beleive that by increasing the smoking age, we will be doing the young people a favor rather then causing them harm. By us allowing these young 18 year olds get their hands a cigarettes, we are causing them more harm then anything else.
What do you think these lawmakers should do? Should they increase the legal smoking age or not?
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If they don't get them from their legal friends, I'm pretty sure they could just filch them off of parents or get someone else to buy them for them.
The drinking age doesn't exactly stop underage drinking. I don't see how increasing the smoking age will help.
But I'm also of an opinion that we should lower the drinking age and raise the driving age.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/sawaboof
"...There is a crushing guilt that comes with being a Catholic. Whether things are good or bad or you're simply... eating tacos in the park, there is always the crushing guilt."
-30 Rock-
they could just filch them off of parents
In some cases, the parents buy the cigs for them! :-S
-- quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
hey, if you can't beat 'em, you may as well just give in...
It's better than knowing your kids are stealing from you, right?
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/sawaboof
"...There is a crushing guilt that comes with being a Catholic. Whether things are good or bad or you're simply... eating tacos in the park, there is always the crushing guilt."
-30 Rock-
I would like to remind you of three things:
1. In Europe, teenagers use cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs far less and far more safely than teenagers in the US... yet in most of Europe, the smoking and drinking age is 16.
2. Not only is there no research that shows that increasing smoking/drinking ages helps at all... there's a lot of research that shows it actually makes people use it MORE.
3. At eighteen, a person is a legal adult, who can own and carry a gun and go to war and engage in all sorts of highly dangerous activities. Who is the government to tell an adult, who it itself has deemed an adult capable of taking care of him/herself, that he/she cannot have a cigarette if he/she chooses because he/she is "too young"?
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Please see my recent blog post, "Genocide and Student Activism": http://www.progressiveu.org/041447-genocide-and-student-activism
Agreed. The main reason why teens do such things is because it's taboo. It's not something they're supposed to do and there is some risk involved (legal ramifications, parents finding out, etc), which makes it that much more tempting. And it's not just a teen thing, it's human nature. We want something we can't have, but when it's free available to us all the time, we don't really care.
-- quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
I'm not sure how raising the smoking age would really help. It's not going to eradicate underage smoking. . .
About the statistic of Europeans using cigarettes more 'safely', do you mean stricter regulations such as closer examinations of pesticide usage and ingredients? More than likely, the legal smoking age in most European countries could be raised in the future like how the UK's age went up from 16 to 18. So I guess it's really only a matter of time.
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http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/orochigenocide
". . . it is error upon error, clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail."