Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States. Many high school students would live to age 18 — the previous legal age to buy tobacco and e-cigarettes in most states — during their senior year of high school. They often bought tobacco and e-cigarettes for young students. I am surprised every year that BU no longer has an anti-smoking campaign. Many colleges are smoke-free, but here you can stand and light under the protection of your building`s entrance. If smoking is really a problem, then there is something the BU can do to make an immediate difference here on campus! Whether or not someone agrees to smoke or drink at the age of 18, if an American can reach the legal voting age, they have the opportunity to live as a responsible adult. The case for nationalizing the legal drinking age is more convincing. When states had different age limits, young people drove to neighboring states that had a lower minimum age and then returned to their home states after drinking, putting themselves and others at risk. The federal law was heavily pushed by mothers against drunk driving, which gave the measure both emotional and rational appeal. The use of tobacco products does not pose this type of direct risk. Nationalizing the minimum purchasing age would require a change in federal law, and I don`t see Congress responding to that anytime soon. Enforcement will never be perfect, so there is always the possibility that some young people will have access to alcohol and tobacco despite the government`s ban on selling to minors. We know that the legal drinking age of 21 is largely ignored, but the public health case for keeping this law – based on extensive and rigorous research – is strong and irrefutable.
It`s just a push to make smoking 21+, so when pot becomes legal, it will be an easy change. Includes all types of tobacco products: cigarettes, smokeless tobacco, electronic nicotine delivery systems (including e-cigarettes) and hookah. According to 2020 data from the National Youth Smoking Survey (NYTS), nearly 1 in 4 high school students (3.65 million) currently use a tobacco product. Current tobacco use was highest for e-cigarettes (19.6%), followed by cigars (5.0%), cigarettes (4.6%), cigarettes (4.6%), smokeless tobacco (3.1%), hookah (2.7%), heated tobacco products (1.4%) and pipe tobacco (0.7%). Just because you don`t use or use your God-given freedom to smoke doesn`t mean you have the authority to take mine. I agree that the age of smoking and alcohol consumption should be the same. Let`s drink at 18. Those who are against smoking and in favour of raising the legal smoking age do not seem to understand the argument presented to them for keeping it low. They look at the cigarettes and say, “Well, that`s just stupid. It`s unhealthy and they commit suicide.
They waste their time on these things! They`re right about all of that. Cigarettes are stupid, and the people who use them are stupid. They kill themselves and cigarettes are useless, except perhaps a little pleasure for the user. What proponents of raising the legal smoking age are missing is not so simple. It`s not about whether cigarettes kill people or not, but whether we, as a society, have the right to tell people they can`t live a certain way because WE think it`s a stupid way of life, and because WE think it`s unhealthy. More than that, it is a question of whether the government has the right to see society say that and then force people to live a certain way. Well, I`m not a political scientist, and I`m not a historian, but I`ve always been taught that the United States. was founded on the principles of “freedom,” and even after my family nurtured these ideals of “freedom” in me, I learned twice what it really meant in the PA in the United States.
Gov and in European History Lessons. “Life, freedom, property” and “life, freedom and the pursuit of happiness” are the two phrases that come to mind when I think of these topics. I`m not going to mention the two people who wrote it, I`m going to let those of you who don`t know how to do your own research (if you don`t have even the most basic knowledge of our nation`s founding history and values, then I don`t think you should really discuss political issues). People who smoke and want the smoking age to remain the same (or even lowered) feel that the government is hindering either their “pursuit of happiness” or perhaps their “property” by telling them not to smoke. These are actions that the government should not take. Now, I understand that it can be argued that the government is protecting people`s “lives” by raising the smoking age, and that`s valid, but I think most of the comments I`ve seen have been statements like “Smoking is stupid and unhealthy!” This seems to me to be a completely anti-intellectual and inappropriate way of debating government policy. So I`m posting this in hopes of directing further comments to a more civilized level of discussion. At first glance, raising the minimum age for smoking tobacco products seems like a good idea. It forces fewer smokers among younger generations and effectively reduces deaths from smoking-related diseases such as lung cancer.
However, we live in America. So shouldn`t our rights as U.S. citizens and legal adults allow us to decide the fate of our own health? Smoking should be completely banned (at least in public). Nothing bothers me more than having to inhale second-hand smoke. I agree with the person above – BU should enforce anti-smoking rules on campus so that those of us who choose not to smoke don`t have to deal with the consequences of others` stupid decision. Research has shown (cigarette manufacturers did, I remember) that most smokers start before the age of 18 and if you can stop people from smoking until they`re older, they`re much less likely to become smokers. The public interest is that smoking-related diseases are very expensive to treat and weigh heavily on state/federal funding of Medicaid. So if you don`t care about other people dying from smoking-related diseases, consider the fact that you`re paying for the medical costs of their preventable illnesses. Motorcycle helmet laws exist to prevent people from hurting themselves (and to reduce the public cost of treating their injuries).