Raising Minimum Smoking Age

[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

[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.

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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.

[tik 🪀✨]

I'm fine with making people go outside or to designated smoking areas... but this country is a stressful and often horrible place to live for a vast majority.  Now the owning classes want to take away that one nice little treat that young wage slaves have to relax and chill them out if that's what they choose?  Most employers are even lenient with allowing smoke breaks so people can rest their weary bodies and minds outside of their woefully insufficient "lunch" (typically a pathetic half hour).  

No, I don't support taking cigarettes away from the young working classes while Mr. Boss Man puffs his Cubans in his office without fear of any consequences despite any laws he might be breaking.  

I don't see the owning class calling for cigarettes to be outlawed anywhere, do you? Typically these proposals are from health groups and just ordinary people who hate smoking. And now, well, what I really want to do is highlight how the "relax and chill" effects of smoking are typically just the cessation of withdrawal symptoms and all the relief you feel is a farce. In addition to being a wage slave, you're also wasting your pitiful penance on something that will, in the long run, have an immensely negative effect on the quality of your life, and that all along you've been under its control, and you cannot stop, making you doubly the deluded slave.

BUT, you know, I've been there, big time. I remember running off when I had a spare five minutes to have that little joy. Now that I don't smoke anymore, I realise I was full of sh**t.. but I still remember what you described. And I so won't mention anything else, as I'm sure you know all of what I've said, and people like me are only an irritation, trying to take away your moment of relief. You stay in control, buddy.