Raising Smoking Age to 21? (sales, house, buying)

[SWOH]

Interesting new public policy story:

New push for raising smoking age | www.mydaytondailynews.com

I apologize for this article being behind the paywall, but the DDN was the first news outlet to pick the story up.

The effort is led by Dr. Doug Crane, OSU professor of family medicine and President of the Preventing Tobacco Addiction foundation. He is going city to city within the state to encourage local governments to ban tobacco sales to those under the age of 18.

Through doing this, he and his organization believe that tobacco use among teenagers would drop significantly. His research was quoted and paraphrased by the DDN, stating:

“Nearly all adult smokers began smoking by the age of 18 — almost no one starts smoking after 21,” according to a study Crane and OSU College of Public Health released earlier this month.

....I have a lot of issues with the that quote, and mixed feelings about the proposal/strategy.


Being a current college student, I know tons of students who started using tobacco after the age of 18 once in college that had never used tobacco prior. Whether it be cigar smoking, hookah, marijuana, e-cigarettes, or even traditional cigarettes, I can't think of a single one of my friends who has not at least tried one of these items. To top that off, most everyone I know had never touched a tobacco product under the age of 18.

Now, these individuals have a relationship with tobacco similar to Frank and Claire Underwood's relationship with tobacco in House of Cards. They don't use tobacco frequently, but they keep it within arm's reach. And for my friends and acquaintances, these habits started in conjunction with the growing pains, socializing, and partying of entering young adulthood. I assume few could observe these trends better than Dr. Crane himself. Which leads to my own confusion of taking this approach to target smoking prevention.


I greatly appreciate his mission, but I believe it's targeted wrong. The current law works, the issue is education among college students. At my college a conservative estimate would be that 50% use tobacco products once a month or more.

Thoughts?

[mkpunk]

I think it should work as good as the drinking age being 21. If you drunk, you already have a fake ID, you can still get cigarettes.

[CSD610]

It is already illegal to sell tobacco products to anyone "under" the legal age of 18 so what is his point?

What it does not show in your statistics is that those of us who are past the age of 54 probably started smoking when we were 12 or 13 and could easily buy them because we could go to the gasoline station and get cigarettes for "Mom & Dad".

[ABQConvict]

If kids are smoking by the age of 18, the minimum legal age, how would raising it to 21 help?

The logic of his statement acknowledges that the legal age is an arbitrary number, so what is the point of raising the legal age except to increase the number of offenders that can be cited?

[SWOH]

Originally Posted by ABQConvict

If kids are smoking by the age of 18, the minimum legal age, how would raising it to 21 help?

The logic of his statement acknowledges that the legal age is an arbitrary number, so what is the point of raising the legal age except to increase the number of offenders that can be cited?

Exactly!

I'll have to do some digging on his organization... I don't understand the logic.

If prevention is the issue, he is targeting it the wrong way. At least to me, something smells.

[woxyroxme]

Originally Posted by CSD610

What it does not show in your statistics is that those of us who are past the age of 54 probably started smoking when we were 12 or 13 and could easily buy them because we could go to the gasoline station and get cigarettes for "Mom & Dad".

I'm 51, started smoking when I was 12, never had a problem buying cigarettes and I never said that they were for my mom or dad. There were also cigarette vending machines in every restaurant and ashtrays at every table. We were also allowed to smoke at our high school in designated areas behind the building.

[CSD610]

Originally Posted by woxyroxme

I'm 51, started smoking when I was 12, never had a problem buying cigarettes and I never said that they were for my mom or dad. There were also cigarette vending machines in every restaurant and ashtrays at every table. We were also allowed to smoke at our high school in designated areas behind the building.

54 and same here, I used the buying for mom and dad as an example, nothing more and I lit my first cigarette in the 5th grade so I was about 9.

[Cleverfield]

Legalize weed, ban tobacco.

[woxyroxme]

Originally Posted by Cleverfield

Legalize weed, ban tobacco.

You are half right, but that would just make the drug cartel switch crops.

[sheena12]

Originally Posted by mkpunk

I think it should work as good as the drinking age being 21. If you drunk, you already have a fake ID, you can still get cigarettes.

Exactly. How about lowering both ages. Like other countries. And legalizing marijuana.

21 is a ridiculous age for drinking. After college you can have your first beer? That's so realistic.

People are going to drink and smoke if and when they want to.