America's Legal Smoking Age Is Being Raised To 21
 

I don't know if any of you heard, but states (and cities) are raising the legal age of smoking from 18 to 21.

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-s...s-vaping-rules
http://www.ibtimes.com/california-fo...derage-2364307
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/20...MlK/story.html
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...l-smoking-age/

Chicago is not only raising the smoking age, but banning chewing tobacco at ballparks and other sport arenas.
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2016/03/...-at-ballparks/

Should the smoking age be raised to 21? Like alcohol was back in 1984?

There are some saying it's hypocritical for the government to raise the age to 21, since the government believes 18 year olds are ready for full adult responsibilities (financial debts, criminal punishments, job/career hours, voting, draft/military service), but won't provide full adult privileges (alcohol, gambling, and now tobacco) until 21. What do you think?

God, the smoking community is collectively such pu**ies.

"OK, we'll sit in the smoking section."

"OK, we'll smoke outside."

"OK, we'll smoke 20 feet from any entrance."

"OK, we won't smoke on this street."

"OK, I won't smoke inside my house."

When is it ever going to be enough is enough?

Now raising the age to 21? They better f***ing raise the age of the draft to 21, too, then. Absolutely insane, appalling.

I'm all for banning chewing tobacco at ballparks, people are absolutely disgusting with that stuff and spits it wherever it suits them.

But it's a bit weird seeing people are allowed to drive steel death traps on wheels before their brain is finished developed, or can go into the military and get training to efficiently riddle another human being with bullets. But not take a drink or light a cigarette.

Legalize freedom.

Good. Smoking is one of the worst things you can do to your body. I don't care what anyone says.

I want to say that MA is looking to ban smoking in cars that have children in them.

I don't really have a horse in this race, as I don't smoke, and don't intend to start. It seems to me though that if this activity is so dangerous...why isn't it just completely illegal?

Oh right, tobacco lobby.

I will also say that I think our age limits are kind of out of whack.
I'm for 18 being the legal age to vote and to serve in the military, but I think we should swap driving and drinking. Let 16 year olds buy beer, but don't let anyone drive until they turn 21.

Good. All those College kids will still smoke anyway.

Most people start College at 18, and by the time they're 21 they're already in College for 3 years. Hard to imagine people at dorms and universities for 3 years with no parental supervision wouldn't be smoking if they wanted to.

So what? So is the sun.

I don't see anyone under the age of 40 smoking anymore, so what does it matter? Are new kids/adults actually picking up this habit? 'Cause I never see it; not on my college campuses, not at my malls, not anywhere.

You have no choice about viewing the sun or not. And we have sunscreen. Smoking is a choice.

Weak point

Kids still smoke.

You cannot smoke inside a café, restaurant, wtv. here since like... 2007? Amazing law. I HATED going out to eat and having someone on the next table smoking. Having smoke going over your food is NOT pleasant.

You can buy beer and wine at 16 in my country. They raised the drinking age of spirits to 18 recently, though.

I see it pretty often. I guess it depends on the country. I've seen/heard a few americans saying before that one of the things that surprised them the most about Europe was how smoking was so prevalent. I know that in France people smoke a lot. I remember, many years ago, a study on TV saying that women in my country were more likely to smoke than men. In HS and in College plenty of my classmates smoked. As in half or nearly of it.

Did it mention vaping? You know, the even dumber form of smoking?

Btw, do you guys in the US put disclaimers in your tobacco packages like we do in the EU saying things like "Smoking kills" or "Smoking is bad for your sperm"? Now they're planning to put pictures of rotten lungs on them, in order to make people smoke less. They should be coherent and do that with booze too lol

You've got to be kidding. Letting kids get comfortable with alcohol before putting them behind the wheel is a great way of raising crash-related fatalities.

Eh, in my opinion, booze, tobacco and driving should all be at 18. Same for voting and military service.

I might be mistaken, but I think you can get a motorcycle license at age of 16 in some European countries...

Vaping is so f*cking stupid. I actually cringe whenever someone my age talks about it. That sh*t is gonna catch up to them eventually.

Nanny state bull ****. It won't stop at smoking.

I smoke, and I approve of anything that oppresses smokers.

One thing I dislike about the indoor smoking ban law however... is that smokers at work are allowed to take more breaks and go outside to smoke their cigs. And I know some certainly use smoking as an excuse to take more breaks. As a non-smoker, I can only go somewhere else for a while if I'm hungry or need to pee. I Although, I guess that also makes smokers less productive as a whole.

Might cripple our economy, but whatever.

You understand that people are ALLOWED to be dumb if they so choose to be right?

(Not advocating vaping, they're douche lords too)

Let people smoke and drink all they want, it doesn't affect me or anyone I know.

I'm all for public health and protecting young people. But at some point people have to start making decisions for themselves even if those decisions are self destructive.
The way ages are assigned to things is so strange. You have to be 35 to run for president but 18 to vote. So someone is mature enough to vote for a leader of the country but not be the leader themselves.

As for the presidency, I think it's more of a significant maturity & life experience issue as to why the president has to be at least 35, since the president holds so much political power that affects the whole population of a nation (rather than just affecting the individual themselves in regards to personal freedoms/privileges), and can make executive decisions on war and the military (i.e. The War Powers Resolution). The maturity and justification for entering the nation into armed combat would be different from an 18 year old vs. a 35 year old.

I mean, just look at the forums here, I'm sure the reasoning and outlook are far different for some of the members here from when they were 18, versus those same individuals who are now approaching 35.

So basically a lot of... "I don't smoke, it's bad for you, and I'm glad there's a lot of people of my same mind so I don't ever have to catch a waft of it anywhere ever, even hypothetically."

Nonsense. Complete nonsense. Especially when held to the same light as other vices out there. And the figures the lobbyists throw out there, "500 million die each year (or whatever made up number is en vogue today) of second hand smoke!!!"... do you know of any? No one does. You won't find one person out there that has ever died conclusively of second hand smoke. It's a white buffalo story.

Yes I totally agree an individuals judgement does/could change with age and life experience.

Generally speaking one may assume that the 35 year old would be more logical. But it all depends on the specific persons emotional maturity. It could be possible for an 18 year old to be wise in the choices they make and a 35 year old to be impulsive and careless in their decisions.

I was just pointing out another (in my opinion) weird age bias that makes little sense to me.

The tobacco lobby don't have many teeth in this country, but the government will never make tobacco illegal because they make so much damn money from taxing it. They've cranked the tax on tobacco so high that a pack of 20 will cost $40 by 2020, and the justification is that it will dissuade people from smoking. That's BS to an extent because if that money goes away, they'd have to find it somewhere else.

We also have gross pictures printed on cigarette packaging here; like diseased eyeballs and tongue cancer. I’m pretty sure the legal smoking age is 18 though, however I don’t think it’s technically illegal for minors to smoke, but it’s illegal to sell, give, or allow them to acquire tobacco.

I'm all for less people. So, yes.

Of course yeah, you want to vape, I'm all for it.


...

I mean, I vaped once.
It took a little getting used to.
Had to find a volunteer to vape me.

*High five*

Lol, what did I just watch?

They should ban it for all ages.

Courtesy the chuckleheads on Comicbookmovie.com.

Gusto and McGee are genius. Jollem is like Cybercubed³

I hate them all, especially Jollem. I heard a theory once that they're all just Josh Wilding troll accounts.

Yeah, I think I put that article up here...

And people complain about the drome.
Pfft.

Anything to do with Josh Wilding fills me up with great rage.

This won't solve anything since underage kids will still smoke and still drink no matter what age restriction is put on them. They can try, but it won't work.

This. Upping the smoking age to 21 will just want kids under that age to do it even more.

Show your work.

A real nanny state would have just made them 100% illegal.

http://67.media.tumblr.com/4a0ec576d...ss1lam_540.gif

Smoking is the one freedom I just don't care about. It's not Libertarian or small government at all to regulate it, but I don't care.

Less is more.

i like it
 

We need to end smoking altogether so making them wait even longer is fine by me. People will probably do it anyway but one less thing to motivate them to.