Raising Minimum Smoking Age

[NeverAgain]

There should be no minimum smoking age.

agreed, it should be banned entirely.

Thanks for knowing what is best for me!

Such a hero!

I also support a legal smoking and drinking age of 16, as well as 16 to buy weed.

Why 16? Wouldn't that be an incentive for High School students to start smoking tobacco? I at least think 18 + so they have the full adult mindset to inform them.

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

There should be no minimum smoking age.

agreed, it should be banned entirely.

Thanks for knowing what is best for me!

haha that slogan doesn't really work when you're talking about tobacco.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

There should be no minimum smoking age.

agreed, it should be banned entirely.

Thanks for knowing what is best for me!

haha that slogan doesn't really work when you're talking about tobacco.

Assuming that one's physical condition is how they judge their well-being in life is sculptural it biased value judgment.

[King]

No, we should go with this strategy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjsSVCLxcZ4

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

There should be no minimum smoking age.

agreed, it should be banned entirely.

Thanks for knowing what is best for me!

haha that slogan doesn't really work when you're talking about tobacco.

Wait, am I being lectured by a person (pardon the pun) who refuses to use capital letters?

There should be no minimum smoking age.

agreed, it should be banned entirely.

Thanks for knowing what is best for me!

haha that slogan doesn't really work when you're talking about tobacco.

Assuming that one's physical condition is how they judge their well-being in life is sculptural it biased value judgment.

Exactly-it isn't a health issue. I know cigarettes are bad, and I know I will die from them if I continue to smoke. But I have one life to live, and I am going to enjoy it at least for a short while.

[TNF]

There should be no minimum smoking age.

agreed, it should be banned entirely.

Thanks for knowing what is best for me!

Such a hero!

I also support a legal smoking and drinking age of 16, as well as 16 to buy weed.

Why 16? Wouldn't that be an incentive for High School students to start smoking tobacco? I at least think 18 + so they have the full adult mindset to inform them.

If you're old enough to have your labor exploited for profit, you're old enough to buy something to help you cope with it.

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

There should be no minimum smoking age.

agreed, it should be banned entirely.

Thanks for knowing what is best for me!

haha that slogan doesn't really work when you're talking about tobacco.

Wait, am I being lectured by a person (pardon the pun) who refuses to use capital letters?

oh man, you got me! i guess we should keep doing nothing about the world's most common preventable cause of death after all!

^{seriously, though, this is almost as good of a non sequitur as tnf's last one. congrats!}

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

There should be no minimum smoking age.

agreed, it should be banned entirely.

Thanks for knowing what is best for me!

haha that slogan doesn't really work when you're talking about tobacco.

Wait, am I being lectured by a person (pardon the pun) who refuses to use capital letters?

oh man, you got me! i guess we should keep doing nothing about the world's most common preventable cause of death after all!

^{seriously, though, this is almost as good of a non sequitur as tnf's last one. congrats!}

People die. I'm going to die. You're going to die. We all die. Frankly, I don't mind dying at the age of 77 from lung cancer in 2073. In fact, it is rather kind of me considering the world's population is growing way to fast for earth to handle it.

You could tell me in normal font size, you know. I don't really care about your internet mumbling.

[Deus Naturae]

Smoking cigarettes will make you die faster. Smokers are aware of this. If they choose to smoke, then the pleasure of smoking is (for them) worth the decreased lifespan. Just like how for other people, the pleasure of eating is worth the extra weight, or the pleasure of raw sex is worth the higher STD risk, or the pleasure of playing sports is worth the risk of injury.

Every choice has its own costs and benefits. Whether the former outweighs the latter is something each individual can decide for themselves according to their own values and preferences.

[Maxwell]

Drinking age should be lowered to 18.

[Thunderbird is the word]

There should be no minimum smoking age.

agreed, it should be banned entirely.

Thanks for knowing what is best for me!

haha that slogan doesn't really work when you're talking about tobacco.

Wait, am I being lectured by a person (pardon the pun) who refuses to use capital letters?

oh man, you got me! i guess we should keep doing nothing about the world's most common preventable cause of death after all!

^{seriously, though, this is almost as good of a non sequitur as tnf's last one. congrats!}

Um have you by any chance seen the effects of prohibition? Just look at the drug war or alcohol prohibition for christsake. You wouldn't be saving any lives, you'd probably be killing more people by enabling violent cartels.

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

Drinking age should be lowered to 18.

You do know that the 21 drinking age is part of a highway funding bill, right? How could that be dealt with?

[TNF]

Drinking age should be lowered to 18.

Or abolished outright.

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

it should be noted that over 10% of deaths due to smoking are from secondhand smoke, so the "well i'm just hurting myself, who cares" argument is bullsht.

now, unless you have a different argument than "i have the ｆｒｅｅｄｏｍ to shove tar into my lungs at top speed and ｎｏｂｏｄｙ ｃａｎ ｓｔｏｐ ｍｅ ≧ʍ≦" i'll be leaving this thread

[TNF]

it should be noted that over 10% of deaths due to smoking are from secondhand smoke, so the "well i'm just hurting myself, who cares" argument is bullsht.

now, unless you have a different argument than "i have the ｆｒｅｅｄｏｍ to shove tar into my lungs at top speed and ｎｏｂｏｄｙ ｃａｎ ｓｔｏｐ ｍｅ ≧ʍ≦" i'll be leaving this thread

What about the argument that prohibiting drugs doesn't work, which I made on the last page and which you never responded to?

[Oakvale]

A lot of nanny state horror in this thread.

it should be noted that over 10% of deaths due to smoking are from secondhand smoke, so the "well i'm just hurting myself, who cares" argument is bullsht.

now, unless you have a different argument than "i have the ｆｒｅｅｄｏｍ to shove tar into my lungs at top speed and ｎｏｂｏｄｙ ｃａｎ ｓｔｏｐ ｍｅ ≧ʍ≦" i'll be leaving this thread

Uh what? 10% of deaths? Fucking hell, that's impressive considering we live in an age where indoor smoking bans are the norm and the average person can easily go through their day without being exposed to "secondhand smoke" at all.

[Sopranos Republican]

A lot of nanny state horror in this thread.

it should be noted that over 10% of deaths due to smoking are from secondhand smoke, so the "well i'm just hurting myself, who cares" argument is bullsht.

now, unless you have a different argument than "i have the ｆｒｅｅｄｏｍ to shove tar into my lungs at top speed and ｎｏｂｏｄｙ ｃａｎ ｓｔｏｐ ｍｅ ≧ʍ≦" i'll be leaving this thread

Uh what? 10% of deaths? Fucking hell, that's impressive considering we live in an age where indoor smoking bans are the norm and the average person can easily go through their day without being exposed to "secondhand smoke" at all.

Yes. It's as if the a person's of the world go find someone smoking just so they can inhale second-hand smoke and bitch about their "right to clean air" being violated.

[tik 🪀✨]

This thread is ridiculous.

This is like when Michael Bloomburg banned a certain size of drink in NYC or how pop is banned from grade schools; let people consume what they want. I think it's a choice of the person and the government shouldn't ban these types of things.

Before I start, let me clarify that I don't think smoking should be banned and that I believe that the government is not in charge of making sure everyone is pressured into being healthy.

But, "let people consume what they want" is, just, sooo naive. It completely ignores the very real concept of addiction. A lot of people might try tobacco and never bother again, or very rarely have a puff. Good for them. But for those of us who tried it, thought it was pretty alright, and then kept going, addiction is (almost always) the result. Addiction is from that point basically beyond personal choice. You can argue that by continuing regular use that I chose addiction, but of course I always thought it was just something I enjoyed. And then I couldn't not enjoy it anymore without feeling miserable. Hurray!

The point is that "what people want" is, in this case, not what they actually want. Addicts know what they're doing is bad, they want to stop, but they cannot, ..or they convince themselves that they enjoy it so much that everything bad isn't bad enough to outweight the good of getting another fix. If you ask most of them if they'd like to stop, they will say yes. Yet they continue to do it anyway.. because the physical structure of their brain has been changed to necessitate this special chemical being involved in all aspects of pleasure and relief.

This is just one of the reasons libertarianism is nothing but an infantile emotional response to living in a society with structured rules. The fact that they can ignore the very real and physical effects of an action but write it off as "uh but also and then freedom ffs k lol" reveals how little thought has actually gone into it. Not that you specifically believe that, person I originally quoted who wasn't a libertarian by avatar, but others in the thread have said as much.

There should be no minimum smoking age.

agreed, it should be banned entirely.

This is ALSO ridiculous because banning things doesn't do anything except fund criminal enterprises and give cops a distraction from more important crime. No, no, the current decline in smoking rates due to societal pressure and people realizing that it just isn't enough fun to outweigh the risks and that it's getting too expensive, is just alright. We should, while we're at it, be offering addicts free counseling and tools to educate them on how to rid themselves of the habit and medication to help in doing so. Smoking ought not to be banned because addiction is a health expenditure and a physical disorder, but, at the same time, individuals should have the right to decline treatment should they choose. Society can police itself only so far, but there's no role for police in my opinion.

If you want, teach kids in school all about the dangers of smoking, but ALSO teach them all about the process of quitting. Teach them about the insidious ways your own brain begins to play tricks on you to make you doubt your resolve, teach them about how you'll do ridiculous things to get what you need in order to not face withdrawal. Show them the reality of it if they haven't seen it in their relatives. If they still choose it, so be it.

That said, if the smoking age went up to 19, I wouldn't really care. It might help, maybe? I don't know about you, but I could get what I wanted, if I really wanted it, before I turned 18.

tl;dr: If you think smoking is just something people decide to ALWAYS MUST HAVE TO DO EVERY TWO HOURS (uh, I mean... "choose to do") because of the "pleasure" then you are completely deluded and do not understand what addiction is. But, if you think banning it will solve anything, you're almost as silly. Smoking rates are already going down because people see how much it sucks long term. We should educate people on the nature of addiction and withdrawal, and offer them free support when a few of them choose to screw around anyway. And if some people never quit smoking and continue forever, it's their choose. They'll pay for their own health expenses via those lovely regressive sin taxes.

[tik 🪀✨]

A lot of nanny state horror in this thread.

it should be noted that over 10% of deaths due to smoking are from secondhand smoke, so the "well i'm just hurting myself, who cares" argument is bullsht.

now, unless you have a different argument than "i have the ｆｒｅｅｄｏｍ to shove tar into my lungs at top speed and ｎｏｂｏｄｙ ｃａｎ ｓｔｏｐ ｍｅ ≧ʍ≦" i'll be leaving this thread

Uh what? 10% of deaths? Fucking hell, that's impressive considering we live in an age where indoor smoking bans are the norm and the average person can easily go through their day without being exposed to "secondhand smoke" at all.

Dude, she did say "10% of deaths due to smoking." Not that that doesn't sound about 75% like a made-up statistic, but it's not like the dire health effects of smoking typically occur immediately, so an actual decline in health problems due to secondhand smoke exposure might not be seen for quite a while considering how normal it used to be for current olds.

Edit: Gender reassignment edit

[Oakvale]

A lot of nanny state horror in this thread.

it should be noted that over 10% of deaths due to smoking are from secondhand smoke, so the "well i'm just hurting myself, who cares" argument is bullsht.

now, unless you have a different argument than "i have the ｆｒｅｅｄｏｍ to shove tar into my lungs at top speed and ｎｏｂｏｄｙ ｃａｎ ｓｔｏｐ ｍｅ ≧ʍ≦" i'll be leaving this thread

Uh what? 10% of deaths? Fucking hell, that's impressive considering we live in an age where indoor smoking bans are the norm and the average person can easily go through their day without being exposed to "secondhand smoke" at all.

Dude, he did say "10% of deaths due to smoking." Not that that doesn't sound about 75% like a made-up statistic, but it's not like the dire health effects of smoking typically occur immediately, so an actual decline in health problems due to secondhand smoke exposure might not be seen for quite a while considering how normal it used to be for current olds.

Yes, the typo's my fault - I meant to italicise 10% rather than deaths. I was not under the impression that he was claiming that 10% of all human deaths worldwide were attributable to secondhand smoke. That would go from being merely impressive to jawdropping.

It's clearly a nonsense statistic but in any event it's a risk that's greatly decreased in most of the Western World given changing social expectations. I'm not sure why Butafly thinks that that's an argument for banning smoking entirely rather than simply in workplaces etc, etc.

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

it should be noted that over 10% of deaths due to smoking are from secondhand smoke, so the "well i'm just hurting myself, who cares" argument is bullsht.

now, unless you have a different argument than "i have the ｆｒｅｅｄｏｍ to shove tar into my lungs at top speed and ｎｏｂｏｄｙ ｃａｎ ｓｔｏｐ ｍｅ ≧ʍ≦" i'll be leaving this thread

What about the argument that prohibiting drugs doesn't work, which I made on the last page and which you never responded to?

didn't respond because it's apples vs oranges. it's worked pretty well for everything but alcohol and cannabis, and those are objectively an entirely different class of drug than tobacco.

Dude, she did say "10% of deaths due to smoking." Not that that doesn't sound about 75% like a made-up statistic,

source: tobacco use causes over 5mil deaths a year worldwide; secondhand smoke causes 600k deaths a year worldwide

Yes, the typo's my fault - I meant to italicise 10% rather than deaths. I was not under the impression that she was claiming that 10% of all human deaths worldwide were attributable to secondhand smoke. That would go from being merely impressive to jawdropping.

It's clearly a nonsense statistic but in any event it's a risk that's greatly decreased in most of the Western World given changing social expectations. I'm not sure why Butafly thinks that that's an argument for banning smoking entirely rather than simply in workplaces etc, etc.

banning smoking in workplaces won't change the fact that over 50% of children in america are exposed to second-hand smoke

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

it should be noted that over 10% of deaths due to smoking are from secondhand smoke, so the "well i'm just hurting myself, who cares" argument is bullsht.

now, unless you have a different argument than "i have the ｆｒｅｅｄｏｍ to shove tar into my lungs at top speed and ｎｏｂｏｄｙ ｃａｎ ｓｔｏｐ ｍｅ ≧ʍ≦" i'll be leaving this thread

What about the argument that prohibiting drugs doesn't work, which I made on the last page and which you never responded to?

didn't respond because it's apples vs oranges. it's worked pretty well for everything but alcohol and cannabis, and those are objectively an entirely different class of drug than tobacco.

Dude, she did say "10% of deaths due to smoking." Not that that doesn't sound about 75% like a made-up statistic,

source: tobacco use causes over 5mil deaths a year worldwide; secondhand smoke causes 600k deaths a year worldwide

Yes, the typo's my fault - I meant to italicise 10% rather than deaths. I was not under the impression that she was claiming that 10% of all human deaths worldwide were attributable to secondhand smoke. That would go from being merely impressive to jawdropping.

It's clearly a nonsense statistic but in any event it's a risk that's greatly decreased in most of the Western World given changing social expectations. I'm not sure why Butafly thinks that that's an argument for banning smoking entirely rather than simply in workplaces etc, etc.

banning smoking in workplaces won't change the fact that over 50% of children in america are exposed to second-hand smoke

You know, if you don't want to be exposed to second hand smoke you can always, you know, walk away .

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

it should be noted that over 10% of deaths due to smoking are from secondhand smoke, so the "well i'm just hurting myself, who cares" argument is bullsht.

now, unless you have a different argument than "i have the ｆｒｅｅｄｏｍ to shove tar into my lungs at top speed and ｎｏｂｏｄｙ ｃａｎ ｓｔｏｐ ｍｅ ≧ʍ≦" i'll be leaving this thread

What about the argument that prohibiting drugs doesn't work, which I made on the last page and which you never responded to?

didn't respond because it's apples vs oranges. it's worked pretty well for everything but alcohol and cannabis, and those are objectively an entirely different class of drug than tobacco.

Dude, she did say "10% of deaths due to smoking." Not that that doesn't sound about 75% like a made-up statistic,

source: tobacco use causes over 5mil deaths a year worldwide; secondhand smoke causes 600k deaths a year worldwide

Yes, the typo's my fault - I meant to italicise 10% rather than deaths. I was not under the impression that she was claiming that 10% of all human deaths worldwide were attributable to secondhand smoke. That would go from being merely impressive to jawdropping.

It's clearly a nonsense statistic but in any event it's a risk that's greatly decreased in most of the Western World given changing social expectations. I'm not sure why Butafly thinks that that's an argument for banning smoking entirely rather than simply in workplaces etc, etc.

banning smoking in workplaces won't change the fact that over 50% of children in america are exposed to second-hand smoke

You know, if you don't want to be exposed to second hand smoke you can always, you know, walk away .

of course that's an option for independent adults. the link, however, was about children aged 3-11.

[tik 🪀✨]

Dude, she did say "10% of deaths due to smoking." Not that that doesn't sound about 75% like a made-up statistic,

source: tobacco use causes over 5mil deaths a year worldwide; secondhand smoke causes 600k deaths a year worldwide

WORLDWIDE being a very, very important element to these! Unfortunately outlawing smoking or raising the minimum smoking age in the US would do nothing to deter the actions of the tobacco industry in, for instance, SE Asia.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

banning smoking in workplaces won't change the fact that over 50% of children in america are exposed to second-hand smoke[/quote]

I can't find a link to the study in that article. And that's important, because "are exposed to second-hand smoke" is a pretty broad thing. I quit smoking just under a year ago, and I have been exposed to second-hand smoke since then!! Gasp!! If a child is being exposed to this regularly day in, day out, for their entire childhood, that's not okay. But the link you provided doesn't explain anything, I'm afraid.

[Representative MJM]

I think it is embarrassing that our smoking/drinking age does line up with our age of majority in the United States. What is even worse is that an overwhelming majority of Americans support a minimum age of 21...apparently the American electorate believes that when it comes to the state, the ends justify the means.