California raised its smoking age to 21. That will likely save lives.

[nuttynutskin]

It's funny to see drug users on here that are all for legalization but have no problem with restrictions on cigs or alcohol just because they don't like those drugs.

 

[Felonious Monk]

It's funny to see drug users on here that are all for legalization but have no problem with restrictions on cigs or alcohol just because they don't like those drugs.

Just because I'm for legalization of drugs doesn't mean it should be a free-for-all. Cute straw man though.

Just because I think an adult should be able to buy heroin at CVS doesn't mean I think a 12-year-old should be able to (or even an 18-year-old necessarily).

 

[jammin83]

It's funny to see drug users on here that are all for legalization but have no problem with restrictions on cigs or alcohol just because they don't like those drugs.

legalization allows for regulation. regulation is what we are talking here not making them illegal. there will always be discussions had on the most effective way to regulate a substance once we get to that point. roping in young, vulnerable users has been big tobaccos modus operandi for decades. IMO, this is what this legislation hopes to curtail.

I don't think all drugs should be legal, and I don't think any drug should be available without some restrictions. you might be surprised by the number of drugs that i 'like' or think are 'ok'. they can serve a purpose, but i dislike most drugs, and don't think they are good for people, generally speaking with some exceptions. I do get behind harm reduction.

basically, i think the safer drugs from the major classes should be regulated and legal. I think the more dangerous drugs should remain outlawed so long as their is a safer alternative available in the same class. regulation allows the market to be controlled to a degree so long as those regulations don't create a black market. I see nothing wrong with regulating a drug that is perpetrating deaths and chronic sickness around the world and purposely laced with toxins that make them more addictive. we need to do something about it and it may be misguided, but i can think of worse things that state governments have done.

did you even read my post?

 

[N0 W4RN1NG]

Very interesting, what a wide divide we have going here.

I am honestly surprised there are even people in this thread who believe that this will actually save lives.

I am not God, in any sense of the word, but if all my friends were smoking and drinking by age 16, when the age was 18...I just don't see it adding up.

Tell a kid he can't have something. It will make them want it more. Now go ahead and tell that teenager, that they can't have something that all their friends have. He will find a way to get it.

Perhaps this will actually help things in rural areas, where your only way to get tobacco is a 15 minute drive from the middle of nowhere, to a small convenience store.

But in Urban areas? Ridiculous. Outright hilarious even.

Don't get me wrong, tobacco is terrible. So is alcohol.

But it is ridiculous and naive to think that a problem is fixed by changing an irrelevant number to another one.

What if the legal smoking age was 80, and we changed it to 83?!?!

JUST THINK OF ALL THE LIVES WE'D SAVE

EDIT: and these are the same Charlatans who say marijuana will get to kids if it's legal, despite the age restriction. Of course it will! It already has! But tobacco is different?

Sure. Ganz klar.

 

[nuttynutskin]

Just because I'm for legalization of drugs doesn't mean it should be a free-for-all. Cute straw man though.

Just because I think an adult should be able to buy heroin at CVS doesn't mean I think a 12-year-old should be able to (or even an 18-year-old necessarily).

So instead of a kid paying a bum to go in and buy them some beer they could also pay them to go in and get them some H....

roping in young, vulnerable users has been big tobaccos modus operandi for decades. IMO, this is what this legislation hopes to curtail.

Drug dealers do the same thing, and I've never actually seen any tobacco advertised for kids.

regulation allows the market to be controlled to a degree so long as those regulations don't create a black market.
did you even read my post?

Of course that'll create a black market, and all this law is going to do is make it so 18-20 year olds have to have their friends get their smokes instead of kids under 18.

When I was in my later teens it was extremely easy for me to get cigs and alcohol and I didn't even really hang out with the druggies. This law will accomplish nothing to stop underage smoking.

But it is ridiculous and naive to think that a problem is fixed by changing an irrelevant number to another one.

Yup.

 

[N0 W4RN1NG]

A kid can go into a CVS and buy heroin. It happens every day. All you have to do is fake a sports injury, or if you're a girl, say you have very bad menstrual pain.

Actually, I shouldn't say "buy" because 80% of the time these kids have no copay. Parents with good insurance, or medicaid.

I just hand them their "heroin". With a receipt.

 

[slimvictor]

It's funny to see drug users on here that are all for legalization but have no problem with restrictions on cigs or alcohol just because they don't like those drugs.

It's true that I don't like those drugs much (though I have a bit of a love-hate with alcohol) but I would restrict all drugs until age 21. It's not about the drug, it's about the age.
18 is too young - this is my opinion, but based on developmental neuroscience.
Once someone is 21, go for it, I would say.

 

[manboychef]

It's true that I don't like those drugs much (though I have a bit of a love-hate with alcohol) but I would restrict all drugs until age 21. It's not about the drug, it's about the age.
18 is too young - this is my opinion, but based on developmental neuroscience.
Once someone is 21, go for it, I would say.

This is particularly true. I am experiencing quite a few of the negative effects of having used hard drugs all through my teens now that I am sober.

Banning any substance or activity under a certain age will not work unless there is strong support from parents, and those supportive parents back up the law with discussions and honesty with the kids. My parents were not around when I was a kid and I fell into using and drinking. In retrospect if I had been in a household that there was an open forum about these issues I may not have, or may have been more open about my drug use. My dad was a drug addict and if I had seen or been told the things that happened to him due to his use I may not have followed in his footsteps/

 

[spacejunk]

The argument is that really young people are more susceptible to tobacco addiction, and the older you get, the less likely the filthy habit will get its claws into you. There is plenty of evidence to back this up, too.

Personally, if this happened in australia, i'd support it. Smoking costs our health system (which is funded to a large extent by the govt, ie tax $$). Instead, over here they've taxed the fuck out of tobacco, which really fucks poor people who are already addicted
Cutting the rates of smoking is in the public interest - and i agree with jammin83 - this is regulation, not prohibition.

I know people have ideological concerns about governments encroaching on your life choices, and that's fair enough.

But i personally value the liberty of not being addicted to tobacco. I'm not being facetious when i say that freedom from addiction is a freedom i value greatly.
I see what you guys are saying, but i think this is a better approach to what they did over here (plain packaging on tobacco packets, taxed like a motherfucker)

A kid can go into a CVS and buy heroin. It happens every day. All you have to do is fake a sports injury, or if you're a girl, say you have very bad menstrual pain.

Actually, I shouldn't say "buy" because 80% of the time these kids have no copay. Parents with good insurance, or medicaid.

I just hand them their "heroin". With a receipt.

huh? I don't get what you're saying here.

 

[nuttynutskin]

18 is too young - this is my opinion, but based on developmental neuroscience.
Once someone is 21, go for it, I would say.

Links?

The argument is that really young people are more susceptible to tobacco addiction, and the older you get, the less likely the filthy habit will get its claws into you. There is plenty of evidence to back this up, too.

Again, links to the evidence? Because I've never heard such a thing. I smoked way more as a teenager than I do now. Now I hardly smoke at all.

Personally, if this happened in australia, i'd support it. Smoking costs our health system (which is funded to a large extent by the govt, ie tax $$). Instead, over here they've taxed the fuck out of tobacco, which really fucks poor people who are already addicted

Of course more restrictions is the answer lol... Aren't you content enough with how restrictive your government is already?

Besides if 18 means you're old enough to go risk your life at war surely it should mean you should be able to choose to smoke or not. I think someone else sort of alluded to that already.

 

[spacejunk]

This isn't a nationalistic pissing contest - i said in my last post that i think this is a better option than the one australia went for.
As for how restrictive australia is; don't believe the hype.
Our government give us free healthcare. Smokers cost us (ie the people of Australia) $billions in preventable illness.
I have no problem with the regulation of drugs (even stupid pointless drugs like tobacco) - to me it is the best model.
If someone said to me "no LSD or cannabis or heroin or amphetamine until you're 21 - in which case it will be legal and pharma-grade" i'd like to imagine i'd have eventually seen the logic in it.

But as you say - kids will be kids and will get their hands on shit anyway - so what's the fuss? I mean, this sort of legislation isn't perfect, but imo they're at least trying to do something positive for public health. I know a lot of people who are health workers, and the strain smokers put on the health system is enormous.

Now, if you want evidence, look at the graph in the OP.

 

[nuttynutskin]

Where do you draw the line then? Obesity is a major problem here in the US. Does that mean we should make junk food illegal?

 

[spacejunk]

Nobody's making tobacco illegal, so it's a flawed analogy.

 

[slimvictor]

Where do you draw the line then? Obesity is a major problem here in the US. Does that mean we should make junk food illegal?

We are just trying to protect children from undue harm. We are not against the use of drugs in general.
I am not sure what you are trying to argue, except maybe that you believe in freedom.
(Like the freedom of children to use drugs? or the freedom of people to get addicted to whatever they want, at whatever age the want? Or that any regulation whatsoever is wrong?)
And, developmentally, 18 is still a child. (Hell, 21 is not even an adult as far as brain development, but culturally it doesn't make sense to make people wait past that point.)

 

[N0 W4RN1NG]

@Spacejunk:

I work in a pharmacy, and frequently find myself dispensing irresponsible quantities of hard opioid to young teens(but they have been legally been prescribed by a doctor, often the same handful of pill mills, so there is not much I can do without incurring the wrath of corporate)...I have worked in many pharmacies, usually it's not a big deal, but in the one I currently work for it's a total joke...at least 50% of our prescriptions are for opioids...

 

[spacejunk]

^ ah, makes sense now.
Yep...Big Pharma has a lot to answer for. In some ways i'd say the pharma companies are even worse than tobacco companies.
At best, i'd say they're no better than the tobacco industry. But in some ways they're even more shady, deceptive and harmful to people.
Sucks too, because opiates are useful drugs to treat some kinds of pain - but their addictive nature and stigma has this weird paradoxical effect, where people that need them (at least people i've known) to improve their quality of life - have to really battle and jump through hoops to get them. But perhaps there is something up with the way they are scripted where you live, as you seem to suspect.
Crazy old world we got here.

 

[Captain.Heroin]

I'm glad they did this.

Nobody's making tobacco illegal, so it's a flawed analogy.

I believe there's a county in Massachusetts where tobacco is not sold.

 

[One Thousand Words]

Where do you draw the line then? Obesity is a major problem here in the US. Does that mean we should make junk food illegal?

I'd make exercise compulsary

 

[Bagseed]

I live in a country where the legal age to buy tobacco is 16, and from my experience many people here will start even earlier. when I picked up the habit, I was only 14 and back then (some 11 years ago) it was no problem for me to get tobacco. Actually most people I know who smoke cigarettes daily started in their mid to early teens, not so much when they were 18 or older, and those who did seem to be less likely to get addicted to it (at least that's my impression).

I would fully support a legislation to change the legal limit to 18 years, but well, my country is extremely backwards regarding tobacco laws (it is much cheaper here than the average in the EU) and we don't even have sensible laws for smoking in restaurants and bars...

 

[nuttynutskin]

But as you say - kids will be kids and will get their hands on shit anyway - so what's the fuss? I mean, this sort of legislation isn't perfect, but imo they're at least trying to do something positive for public health.

I'm a bigger fan of less government control and more parental control, although now that I think about it we might be fucked since parents don't really parent their kids anymore.

I am not sure what you are trying to argue, except maybe that you believe in freedom.

Pretty much. If someone wants to get lung cancer it's their choice. Like I think I already said I'm fine with the age being 18 like it is everywhere else and I don't see raising the age to 21 doing much of anything to curb tobacco use in younger people.

(Like the freedom of children to use drugs? or the freedom of people to get addicted to whatever they want, at whatever age the want? Or that any regulation whatsoever is wrong?)

Yeah, I think children should use drugs. 8( You're just putting words in my mouth now. Let me know if you want a serious discussion.