United States US Raising Smoking Age to 21

[prinCZess]

Because Christmas gifts of stupid shit are a grand holiday tradition!

US raises legal age to buy cigarettes, vapes to 21

President Donald Trump on Friday signed a sweeping spending bill into law, including a provision that prohibits the sale of tobacco products to anyone under the age of 21.

www.cnn.com

President Donald Trump on Friday signed a sweeping spending bill into law, including a measure that prohibits the sale of tobacco products to anyone under the age of 21.

Included as part of a massive government spending bill largely concerned with defense spending, this comes largely in response to a manufactured crisis of nefarious vape-pens corrupting the youth of today and making them into deviants who loiter in parking lots and play their music too loud among other evil deeds of similar horrific consequences.

Personally I'm of the mind that the age of majority should actually mean something and the ages for any of these 'adult' activities as denoted (smoking, drinking, signing contracts, enlisting in the military, etc.) should--and even further in any just system must--be the same, and because of a US Amendment putting the voting age at 18, that's where these affairs should be set--at the very least on the federal level.

What say other folks? Am I all kooky? Does someone want to justify this? Other folks out there in different countries that handle things differently for better or worse?

 

[Floridaman]

If they are old enough to die fighting, or old enough to decide in what way they want to fuck each other over by voting, they should be old enough to drink, and smoke. If a state wants to set this as a rule fine, but for the feds this is stupid. By the way denying funding unless the states comply like they did for drinking is also wrong.

 

[bullethead]

This seems stupid and petty to me, but kind of unavoidable if no one is willing to back a Constitutional amendment implementing a line item veto, so stuff like this can get excised while authorizing one of these omnibus bills.

Also, I'm pretty sure that smoking as a cultural habit/institution is on the decline/in the minority, so there's no real political loss for Trump to back this. I can imagine how the Democrats would try to spin a veto on a standalone version of this - it's going to be a lot of "think of the children/Donald Trump doesn't care about your kids".

 

[Curved_Sw0rd]

There's so little point to this, it just reeks of moral panic.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Isn’t vaping safer compared to cigarette smoking? Though you will look like a fucking douche whilst doing it in my opinion

 

[Basileus_Komnenos]

Isn’t vaping safer compared to cigarette smoking? Though you will look like a fucking douche whilst doing it in my opinion

Not necessarily, as new studies have shown an increasing number of deaths related to vaping. There's also the fact that while vaping is less harmful than cigarettes, they still contain harmful carcinogens within the vapor. Though its also used to help smokers transition away from cigarettes to quit entirely.

 

[Captain X]

I bet if there was a requirement for all of these things to be set to the same age as basically "the age of majority," they'd back the fuck off since it would mean raising the voting age back to 21 and military service age up to 21.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Not necessarily, as new studies have shown an increasing number of deaths related to vaping. There's also the fact that while vaping is less harmful than cigarettes, they still contain harmful carcinogens within the vapor. Though its also used to help smokers transition away from cigarettes to quit entirely.

I thought that's partially due to people using vape juice from non-legal people or from unsanitary conditions?

 

[Basileus_Komnenos]

I thought that's partially due to people using vape juice from non-legal people or from unsanitary conditions?

That's also one reason, but there's also the fact that the only real thing that's safe for humans to breathe is actual air. While vapor is being released when the liquid is "vaporized" it's not all water vapor. Though there isn't very much study done on these chemicals as e-ciggarettes have only been around for at least a decades while data on the tobacco industry goes back to the 17th century when these crops first made their way to Europe from the American colonies held by Spain, Portagul, France, and Britain.

 

[Darth Robbhi]

Not necessarily, as new studies have shown an increasing number of deaths related to vaping. There's also the fact that while vaping is less harmful than cigarettes, they still contain harmful carcinogens within the vapor. Though its also used to help smokers transition away from cigarettes to quit entirely.

Except that it doesn't.

The e-cigarette manufacturers fought tooth and nail to avoid vapes being classified as a smoking cessation device. There's also a large body of data that vapes are just replacing cigarettes for those who can afford it, or driving them back to cigarettes if they can't.

The other side is the difference in device design and marketing. Vapes peddled to adults are large, clunky, and would probably work as a hand to hand combat device. Vapes peddled to teenagers are completely different. They're small, sleek and stealthy. They are deliberately designed to look innocuous.

I work with our tobacco control program, and they work closely with schools. The stuff they buy or confiscate is deliberately designed to fool parents and teachers. They look like pens, highlighters, iPods, cell phone batteries, even hoodie drawstrings. Vaping has also put a serious dent in the trend toward people giving up tobacco or marijuana because vaping made it cool and respectable again.

So they're not really putting an end to tobacco. They're a competing, and often more expensive, product.

I thought that's partially due to people using vape juice from non-legal people or from unsanitary conditions?

As for VAPI or EVALI, we don't know what the source or sources are. There are lots of possibilities, especially if it's caused my a multitude of factors. Could be bootlegs, or people buying stuff they thought was legit but wasn't. Could be marijuana, and people not willing to admit it. Could be diacetyl, similar to popcorn lung. Could be genetic susceptibility and we just had enough people vape that we found those one in a million people. Or all of the above.

Right now, the only defined commonality is vaping. Beyond that, there is no single factor that explains all the injuries and deaths.

 

[Darth Robbhi]

Also, I'm pretty sure that smoking as a cultural habit/institution is on the decline/in the minority, so there's no real political loss for Trump to back this. I can imagine how the Democrats would try to spin a veto on a standalone version of this - it's going to be a lot of "think of the children/Donald Trump doesn't care about your kids".

It was, as tobacco became less socially acceptable and a habit of poor people.

Vaping has reversed that trend. If you look at the advertising and especially the social media presence of Juul and other e-cigarette makers, they are returning to many of the pre-lung cancer cigarette ads. Basically, vaping makes you cool and gets you laid. As a result, we are seeing a substitution of e-cigs for cigs amongst kids, especially poor kids. However, the vapes are more expensive, more concealable and/or have higher nicotine levels. So we're getting kids jonesed on levels of and access to nicotine, amongst other crap, that's not financially sustainable. So lots of kids or twentysomethings go back or go to cigarettes, because they are cheaper.

It's a double whammy for tobacco cessation, at least where I live and work.

 

[Darth Robbhi]

Will raising tobacco sale price to 21 work to keep people from starting to smoke?

About as well as alcohol being limited to 21, or tobacco to 18.

Prohibition is ineffective in the face of desire.

Much more effective policy is to make cigarettes or vaping something gross, disgusting, and to ensure not even sex toys will have you if you do it.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Much more effective policy is to make cigarettes or vaping something gross, disgusting, and to ensure not even sex toys will have you if you do it.

You mean bombarding people with horribly disgusting pics of people who smoked/vaped too much and their organs and sorta exaggerate it.

 

[MementoMori]

The Government could wave its big stick all it want, people will do what people want to do. Remember how prohibition went? Making the legal age higher is a simple governmental theater to placate the "think of the children crowd".

Like literally other than outright making it illegal and making possession illegal nothing will change and people who want to vape will vape.

 

[Darth Robbhi]

You mean bombarding people with horribly disgusting pics of people who smoked/vaped too much and their organs and sorta exaggerate it.

That only works to a point. You ultimately end up creating a glamor of evil, where you're a hotshot for handling the evil. You also are faced with suggesting people defer immediate gratification (cigarettes are cool and I am gonna totally get laid a lot now if I smoke) for long term payoffs (not dying a slow, agonizing death in sixty years). That doesn't work, because seventy is so way the hell off when you're seventeen, it's meaningless.

It's much more effective to divest smoking of the glamor. A hot girl or boy going "ew, gross! Get the fuck away from me!" if you reek of tobacco is a lot more effective. Brand tobacco or vaping as something poor people and losers do, and you'll massively decrease teen tobacco use, and thus all tobacco use.

 

[Darth Robbhi]

The Government could wave its big stick all it want, people will do what people want to do. Remember how prohibition went? Making the legal age higher is a simple governmental theater to placate the "think of the children crowd".

Like literally other than outright making it illegal and making possession illegal nothing will change and people who want to vape will vape.

We were actually doing a lot to decrease tobacco use when we took away glamorous advertising and a lot of the hot men and women smoking on TV and film. We did a lot more when we disconnected the social aspect of smoking by forcing smokers to go outside away from everyone else.

Nothing makes smoking look gross like a bunch of prematurely old people ducking into a back corner to puff up.

 

[Isem]

I'm not so sure what the point of raising the age needed is when the intended goal is to prevent 14 year olds from doing it. Or to quote Rand Paul in his glorious twitter thread where he just went off on a lot of people:


Like seriously, why are you raising the minimum age when the people you intend not to smoke are already covered by it?

 

[Cherico]

Going to second the motion if your old enough to die for your country your old enough to vape.

 

[Darth Robbhi]

I'm not so sure what the point of raising the age needed is when the intended goal is to prevent 14 year olds from doing it. Or to quote Rand Paul in his glorious twitter thread where he just went off on a lot of people:


Like seriously, why are you raising the minimum age when the people you intend not to smoke are already covered by it?

21 year olds hanging out with 14 year olds is unusual and hella sketchy. 18 year olds hanging out with 14 year olds is just another day at Podunk High.

While I don't think bans will be effective, if you see 18yr olds as the Juul conduit into your student body, cutting off their ability to legally and easily purchase via Amazon or the ubiquitous smoke shops is logical.

 

[Isem]

21 year olds hanging out with 14 year olds is unusual and hella sketchy. 18 year olds hanging out with 14 year olds is just another day at Podunk High.

While I don't think bans will be effective, if you see 18yr olds as the Juul conduit into your student body, cutting off their ability to legally and easily purchase via Amazon or the ubiquitous smoke shops is logical.

Assuming of course that said 18 year olds won't just ask someone older to get it for them or just get it illegally and then carry on from there.