Hi! I am asking a few questions about smoking and raising the smoking age. I would really appreciate your input/opinions!!!
Thank you, Katrina Schoonover
Studies show that 90% of smokers start smoking before age 21. Do you think the legal smoking age should be raised to 21? Do you think that would make a difference?
Doctors know that smoking causes lung cancer (the leading cancer killer in both men and women), other illnesses, raises healthcare costs drastically, and many believe it's as addictive as harder drugs. From those statistics alone, why isn't tobacco illegal? Simply because it's not a hallucinogenic/intoxicating? Or is it the "powerful" and greedy tobacco companies? Should it be illegal?
Lastly, if you smoke, what age did you start? Did your parents smoke and did that affect your decision?
14 comments:
I believe that changing the legal smoking age will do nothing to lower the amount of under age smoking, but that it would increase that amount, because the people that are between 18 and 21 that already smoke would not stop just because the government wants to change something like this. There is also the fact that some teens only smoke to act cool since it is something that is illegal and that raising the age will only make it more of a thrill.
John Maxwell
Katrina
I am 24 and have never tried a cigarette before. I haven't spent much time thinking about it being illegal, but the more I do think about it I see the pro side to making it illegal. I think raising the age would show a decrease in smoking. I know under age teens would still find ways to smoke, but I feel there would be a significant drop. Again, I haven't spent much time researching it, but in my opinion the tobacco companies have enough money to keep the government on their side.
2:59 PM
christie johnson
Hi, Katrina. I have smoked maybe 17 cigarettes in my life. I don't like the idea of laws in general because they discourage people thinking for themselves and using their own common sense, but with all the other laws out there, I'd probably be for a law banning cigarttes in ALL public places. I would also like to see a law against smoking in houses or cars with children in them. If you pass those two laws, I think you're making the world safer for most innocent nonsmokers.
I wouldn't want to criminalize cigarettes (or the use of any other substance, really), but I would like to see them taxed even higher than they are and for that extra $$ to go to good causes.
I'd be fine with raising the legal age to purchase cigarettes to 21, but I don't think that would help matters much. Cigarettes are so easily available to almost anyone that no laws are going to keep them away from those who want them (same deal with guns).
One last comment: I'd also like for it to be possible for children to bring lawsuits against their parents if their parents smoked in the house around the children, and the children later developed any kind of symptons associated with second-hand smoke.
I'd also like there to be NO connections between the tobacco industry and government. That's just common sense, I guess, but I know that big tobacco has lots of lobbying clout.
John Wentworth
I smoked cigarettes for about ten years; I smoked my first at the age of 18. I have tried pot and alcohol but have managed to stay away from anything else (unless you consider caffine). From my therefor limited experience I think tobacco is one of the most insidious and just generally evil drugs around. The benefits of smoking cigarettes are limited to the ill-perceived "coolness" of someone who smokes them and a momentary head rush that you sometimes get with the first one of the day; the drawbacks would fill up this bolg if I wanted to list them all. The fact of the matter is that nicotine is one of the most physically addictive substances known to man (the tobacco companies were denying this as late as 2002)which is the only reason why millions of people still cling to the filthy habit. Even three years plus after I quit I sometimes get the urge to light one up, a feeling I never would have had to deal with had I never picked one up. This is never explained to you in cigarette ads; I never even knew what addiction really was until I started smoking. I looked around at druggies, alcoholics, and smokers and said to myself "What is the big deal? Just put it down and walk away from it." Tobbaco companies rely on new blood to fill the ranks of smokers who are steadily destroyed by the product they market and they have powerful lobbyists making sure the government looks the other way. I think tobacco should be made into a presription drug to those who are already addicted and the tobacco companies would have to supply it AT COST until people are gradually weened off the trash. Raising the legal age of purchase would be like putting a bandaid on a severed limb.
James Koltz
even if we lowered the smoking age it won't stop the younger people to stop smoking.kids these days don
t care what the government has to say they just do what makes them feel better or what they think makes them look better.i mean the legal age of drinking is 21 and u still see alot of high schoolers drinking every weekend.
Katrina, As you know i smoke, I have smoked cigarettes for a long time about age 15. I started to be cool dont even remember hoe i whent from just playing to actualy needing them.I dont see that an age change would do much good,because we have done this in the past it just makes it a little harder and dangerous to get for minors. I belive that if your a minor its up to you parents to raise you not the goverment.I can see why their is such hatered twords cigarttes but keep in minde moste dont whant to smoke but are addicted to the nicoteen.
Steve Schoonover
I don't think raising the smoking age would do any good. Plus, if the smoking age was increased to 21, then i think that the adult age would have to be raised to 21 as well. It wouldn't make any sense for someone to be 18 yrs. old and be considered as an adult, be able to live on your own, and go off to fight in war, but yet not be old enough to buy a pack of cigarettes.
I used to smoke half a pack 6 year ago until I found out that I had asthma. It was hard to quit, but well worth it. I don't believe that smoking should be illegal for the soul fact that if it was illegal there would be more of a thrill to smoke. I honestly believe that everyone dies at some point in their life and if smoking is how they won't to move the dying process along then so be it, thats their choice.
Tiffany Badgley
I do not think the smoking age should be raised to twenty one simply because it won't make a differance. I wasn't legally able to smoke until I was eighteen and I started at fourteen. I know alot of people that were the same way. There is to much money to be made off tobacco to make it illegal. My parent's did not smoke but when I started a fourteen it was brought about by peer pressure.
I think smoking would deter underage children from trying to smoke even if the goverment plan on doing whatever their going to do. as a semi smoker myself, I started when I was sixtheen, and I smoke less today then I did back in the late sixty and early seventy's. There is a known fact that kids today as well as kids my age back then only did smoke to look cool nothing has change but time. The only other reason we do it because it illegal and we going to do it anyway. Even if the goverment raise it to 21, that would not change anything. They would try to find other ways to get cigarettes. Raising the age to 21 will only make it more of a thrill.
Daryl Brown
I think that raising the smoking age will not solve anything. I had friends that started smoking at the age of fourteen and just had older kids buy them for them or just took off of their relatives when they could. It's not the age and legalized age limit that is the issue it is the environment that kids are surrounded by that needs to change. If the kids see adults that they look up to smoking than their going to think thats what they should do to be exactly like their idol. I for don't smoke because I watched my grandma die from it and wouldn't to go through that myself or put my loved ones through that experienc. If kids are shown at a early young age what smoking does to your body, like showing pictures of a smokers lung verses a non smokers lung. Or bring in someone that has severe symptoms brought on by smoking for so many years to speak to them of the realtities of it and not what is trying to be percieved. This will give them an up front and personal reference in their memmory to think back when faced with should we smoke or not. Raising the age is just letting them now that their being told not to do this and this will drive them even harder to try it so they can be contrary.
Natasha Reynolds
Really smoking is a personal perference, I think a person who smokes should be atleast 21 and respect that they could not only be hurting themselves but other people around them. I smoke once in great in awhile just for stress reasons, not around my children or other people's children or a adult who doesn't want it near them. My dad smoked and right before he died he couldn't even walk a step without his oxygen. But if it's not a addictive substuite for I don't think it hurtsas long as you can deal with the fact you may be leaving family behind.
jena h
I don't think that changing the legal smoking age will do much to lower the amount of underage smoking. Kids that aren't old enough to smoke now still find ways to do it, so I'm sure they would still find ways to do it if the law was changed.
No dont change the age.....it would be a waste of time....its plain and simpl, ok so its not hard to get alchool even if your underage, its not hard to get dope and other illegal drugs, putting an age limit on buying cigs wont do a damn thing, al-though ive never put a cig in my mouth and i think its very sick and bad habbit, it wont matter at all changing that age.
britt miller
Post a Comment