How DO teenagers get their hands on cigarettes??

Question

I was just wondering since I have seen so many teenagers smoking on my way from school that couldnt have been older than 14. How is it possible to get them other than from older siblings and parents?

Answer 1

I'm 16, and I smoke, where I live you have to be 19 to buy cigarettes and 16 to smoke them... But they are sooo easy to get...

I just got to the Smoke N Pop Shop (little corner store simular to 7 11) and if its the hindu guy working he'll sell to minors... If its the chink guy depending on his mood he might and if its the chink girl, she wont so you have to find someone else in the store who is over 19 who will get them for you...
I just go up to a random guy and say I forgot my ID at home and I need to get a pack of smokes and if he would help me... Usually they say yes and they go up to the counter with me and I tell whoevers working what kind I want and I pay with my credit card but they hand the cigarettes to the person of age who then gives them to me... that way the person working didnt break the law...
That whole thing takes less than 5 minutes and is totally legal...

If you dont have a corner store that will let you do that, just walk up to someone smoking and say "can I bum a smoke?" usually they'll say yes, if not ask the next person... you can also ask to buy a smoke for $1

Also, you can steal cigarettes from the store, this usually takes 2 people... one gets the person working away from the counter to help with something while the other grabs a pack and leaves with them

Answer 2

I am a teenager myself and I do not smoke. However some of my friends do. I know that they either get cigarettes from stealing from their parents or friends. They also can get them by getting their friends that are old enough to buy them to get the cigarettes for them. They do this by giving their friends the money or by trading things like caffiene pills (which I also do not do). Otherwise they can go to some stores that don't always check your age and they buy them outright. And the final way I have seen this done is that they pick the cigarettes up from off the ground that have mostly already been smoked and relight them or take the tobacco out of them and making a new cigarette.

I myself will never smoke because I know of all the effects of smoking and how harmful it can be.

Answer 3

As a former teenage smoker, here's how i got them:

*stealing them from parents, or older siblings
*from friends who stole them from parents or older siblings
*a small convience store that doesn't check ID (you'd be suprised how many their are)
*a small convience store where you know someone who works there
*a friend who knows someone at a small convience store
*a friend who IS old enough to buy them
*bumming one here and there off of random people you see smoking

there are quite a few ways they could get them, those are just the most common ways I got them. Now i am old enough to buy them, but am trying to quit.

Answer 4

Stealing them, getting an older person (friend, sibling, etc) to buy for them or finding a shopkeeper who doesn't care and would rather have the money than worry about underaged smokers. I've seen shopkeepers sell cigarettes to kids in my city.

Answer 5

Normally from an older friend or stealing them from their parents or maybe the parents let them smoke. Stupid but I have seen parents allow their children to smoke and buy them for them.

Answer 6

When I was 9 through 11 i got them by stealing from my parents. Now I am 13 and I get them from a store that doesn't check for ID's.

Answer 7

Teenagers are like water. when you trap them they find a way to escape. the cigaretts which you see them smoking may be gotten from friends and parents or even elder siblings and sometimes stolen.

Answer 8

There are plenty ways for a kid to get cigaretts. Could not begin to name them. If the courts would really "tighten" up on contributing to Minors and make the law stick then maybe some of these FOOLS would wake up. Nothing like contibuting to someone committing murder.

Answer 9

Paying 18-year-olds to buy the cigarretes for them. The 18-year-old can charge the little kid about 5-10 bucks over-price and come off with a nice profit every week. Economics to a high-schooler.

Answer 10

back in the day there were ciggarrette machines in pizza places and bowling alleys. You'd wait for the bowling alley guy to do something and slip your quaters in. There were places that would sell them to you. You learned where you could go. Try at random places. Steal them. By the time you were 16 or 17, somebody would have a job at a store and would hook it up.