Will raising the legal age of teenagers to 18 for buying cigarettes really make any difference?

Question

There are some really brilliant answers here, which makes it very difficult to choose the best, so I shall leave it to the voters. Thank You!
Have a Prosperous and Happy 2007.

Answer 1

Definitely. It is about breaking a culture. If it just makes it a little harder to obtain cigarettes it must be done. Well also have an obligation to tell minors smoking is dangerous and allowing 16yo's to purchase it, is condoning it.

Answer 2

I'm certainly not saying Michigan doesn't need the money, cos God knows they do and more, but I am sure they changed it to stop people over 18 buying them legally for children under 18. Bottom line: Don't smoke. 1) You stink 2) You make other people stink 3) You make all your possessions stink 4) You make the immediate cloud of air around you stink 5) You will contract cancer and die before you reach my age 6) You stink

Answer 3

NO ......But I could be wrong maybe more criminals how sad another law .. to be honest I started smoking at age 13 ..SAD I know but it wasn't anything to do with shops retailers nothing like that it was just there ...didn't know the hang ups then maybe before 12 yrs in school right to the point drummed in over and over again .. like learning the multiplication tables might make a difference ....sometimes it has to be drummed in ..show photos etc etc a new law don't think so

Answer 4

Doubt it - for all the reasons listed by the other contributors. If the government really thought smoking was such a bad thing they'd ban it. Oh yeah, but then they'd loose an enormous amount of taxation revenue. Ah well - continue killing yourselves then!!

The thing with kids is that they "think" it makes them look cool and mature. When in actual fact it makes them look even more immature. Kids (13-15) get off my train in the evening and have to grab a ciggie the moment they're on the platform. It's soooo funny you hear them going "like, yeah man, I'm like, so need a smoke init". I can never stop myself laughing as I walk past them clamouring around the pack of 10 silk cut they share between them. Yeah, you need a cigarette to make your hair stink, turn your teeth and hands yellow, dampen your sexual prowess and that's before you get to all the really nasty things like cancer and heart disease!!

The only way to stop people smoking? Invent time travel - then when they get older and their body starts suffering from the years of abuse and these illnesses cause them some some real grief they could turn back the clock and not smoke.

Answer 5

This isn't going to make the blindest bit of difference. Many 16 year olds can pass for 18 without the need for any form of ID to prove how old they really are. And if they are under age, it's easy enough for an older person to buy the cigarettes for them. The same thing happens with 16 year olds and alcohol.

Answer 6

Probably, a small amount. None of the measures taken in the past have worked wonders on their own, but by banning cigarette advertising, putting warnings on packets, clamping down on shops, health promotion campaigns, the proportion of the UK population smoking has fallen from over 50% in the 1960s, to barely 20% today.

Every measure taken just chips away at that number and the public smoking ban in July, together with this measure will encourage more people to stop, or never start.

Answer 7

Only if they introduce punishment for businesses and adults selling and giving cigarettes to minors. For example in Canada, it's a 10000 dollar fine for a business for the first offence, 25000 for the second offence and revoke of licence for the third offence. It's a 5000 dollar fine for an adult buying smokes for minors. The practice of selling and getting smokes to minors has all but stopped. It still happens probably but not very often. I've even heard of cops setting up sting operations to catch businesses. If they did something like that and enforced it in the UK, it would make a difference.

Answer 8

There is no shortage of white, middle-class do-gooders, who want to make everyone conform to their ways.

These are people who speak with a home-counties accent, work for the local authorities, never speed in their cars, always stuff tissues up their little woolen sleeves, who wear flat shoes, a modest wedding ring, read "Harry Potter" to their children, watch programmes about furry animals and who never swear, gamble, take a drink or eat anything which contains poly-unsaturates.

The same people probably wear blue-knickers, or if they are men, white Y-fronts.

They are the sort of people who vote very sensibly, and believe that grey-men in grey-suits a kingdom make.

Meanwhile, the grey-men in grey-suits resemble ineffective Scottish Presbyterian Ministers, who gather to discuss the latest social-evil, and then make ineffective laws which they don't have to enforce and which have absolutely no chance of success.

We are daft enough to vote them into power, support them with out hard-earned cash and hang on their every word.

Like most of ther other 2,000 laws which this absurd government has passed, no-one will take much notice of them, and life will continue as before.

The irony is, that at 16, they can go to bed with a ***, but they can't light one up afterwards.

(No offence there....I'm gay myself....I just liked the line).

Answer 9

No not on it's own; retailer greed will always overrule! It's not the buying of cigarettes that needs to be controlled but the selling! In Spain the selling of cigarettes has now been restricted to tobacconist shops only, now the monitoring of the selling of cigarettes is manageable. In this country too many outlets are able to sell cigarettes with little or no chance of any enforceable control being implemented.

Answer 10

It will make it more socially unacceptable which is the driving force behind it i guess.
I am looking forward to living in a society where smoking is totally socially unacceptable. I hate having to breath the stench of smoke.
Soon it will be banned outright anyway, just like it is in the far east, you cannot even smoke in the street.

Answer 11

Nay.
Little chavs will still be having ciggies whether they're legal or not- because what are they going to do when one of their metro-mates asks if "can I bum a faggg?"
Besides, at least when they're pretend puffing- we can't hear their chav gibberish.
I think if we made the nicotine into candy sticks for kids, which has an added sterilizing chemical- we could solve the problem in two hits.

Firstly- they get the nicotine hit, and the worst they get is sticky fingers and when they start shagging each other without their mini-raincoats they can't get teenagers preggers and populate the world with useless, low-skilled, baby-chavs- who will then smoke and impregnate underage girls.

Secondly- we need to bring bak the pipe and three-piece suit. Chavs smoke cigarettes, CHAPS smoke cigars/ pipes and wear a three-piece suit. Pipes come with lots of cool accessories- you can clean your ears with it, you can smoke some jazz or rock in it, you can point at stuff with it- and you never look unsophisticated with a pipe.
Have you ever smelt pipe tobacco? Oh my God it smells delicious! You can mix it yourself, spice it- it's magic.
And there's a massive sustainable industry that could be re-created through pipe/cigar smoking.
Pipe and cigar smoking- while very unhealthy- cause fewer health concerns than ciggies as firstly you're smoking almost pure, fermented, cured tobacco (not factory floor-sweepings or glues, etc) and you don't draw the smoke into your lungs, but instead savour the flavours and aroma in your oral cavity. Cancer of the mouth/tongue/soft-palate can occur- but risks can be minimised with less use.

Pipes. Bring em back- we can re-employ chavs into useful tradesmen making gorgeous handmade pipes and accessories, curing tobacco and snuff and also into tailors and seamstresses for our fine 3-piece tailored suits.
Problem solved- class acts all round.
I think I might have one of my Cuban Robustos now. Puff, puff.