Smoking ciggerates, should It be allowed for the youth?

[Sharpie]

uhhmm.

[brainiac3397]

uhm...drunk college students(age 18)

nuff said.

[Thought Criminal]

No. I'm a smoker. I started my junior year of high school and I honestly wish I hadn't. I enjoy smoking, part of that is the addiction talking and even as a non-smoker never thinking I would smoke it was still undeniably cool, but it's still something kids don't have the ability to decide on, nobody does not even adults, hell I would support moving the legal age to 21 if it meant fewer people would pick it up. It's honestly kind of difficult to get hooked but once you are it isn't gonna fucking go away and that's what big tobacco counts on. I've tried quitting numerous times and it's always failed. Longest I went was 6 months, but I'm back at it again.
I knew damn well the health effects going in but it was still an awful decision.
Frankly it's kind of surprising how many gas stations will sell to minors, but cigarettes were still harder for me to get than weed.
The best thing that could happen to cigarettes is for society to stigmatize them out of existence. We'd be a whole lot better off without them.

[brainiac3397]

I need alcohol. But not for drinking.
I need stuff like Everclear for some...science projects. Wonder if my beard would make it easy to obtain?

Funny thing is that in Turkey, there wasn't an age limit on smoking. Alcohol is also at age of 18 but that's another story.

Course it's not exactly healthy when you've got 13 year olds asking you for a lighter or most people assuming you carry either matches or lighter because you're young.

[Missile]

You can use Vodka as insect repellent

[lisafromjackson]

I feel like this is a little like asking if women should be drafted into the armed forces. I don't think ANYONE should be drafted.

[Missile]

(01-02-2015 05:50 AM)lisafromjackson Wrote:  I feel like this is a little like asking if women should be drafted into the armed forces. I don't think ANYONE should be drafted.

Then you should be glad that you don't live in Russia, Israel, or Switzerland

[brainiac3397]

The Swiss and Israelis don't complain about conscription.

In fact in some countries that have conscription, it's considered a rite of passage.

[lisafromjackson]

I'm just saying that if I think something is wrong for a whole group, why woudl I think it was more or less wrong for one sub-group?

[Missile]

(01-02-2015 06:25 AM)brainiac3397 Wrote:  The Swiss and Israelis don't complain about conscription.

In fact in some countries that have conscription, it's considered a rite of passage.

Considering that I may join the Military when I hit 18, I wouldn't really care about conscription if I lived in Russia/Israel/Switzerland.

In Israel, both men and women are required by law to join the military when they turn 18.

[brainiac3397]

Considering Israel is a democracy, it would be safe to assume conscription doesnt bother the constituents. Same for pretty much every real democracy with conscription(not the so-called democracies that are akin to presidential dictatorships)

[Username]

(01-02-2015 06:25 AM)brainiac3397 Wrote:  In fact in some countries that have conscription, it's considered a rite of passage.

True.

[brainiac3397]

Should see Turkey. You're only half a man till you do your duty.

Of course most expatriates have money so they just "buy" their conscription with like 9-10k and only go for like two weeks which is primarily just official registering and stuff.

[Username]

I'm still waiting for MurkScribe's argument for letting kids smoke.

[KFC Nyan Cat]

(01-02-2015 10:55 PM)Username Wrote:  I'm still waiting for MurkScribe's argument for letting kids smoke.

It's not gonna happen.

[brainiac3397]

In the mean time, I shall light my fancy pipe and wear my monocoles to read the daily news in front of my fireplace on my velvet couch located within the luxurious library quarters of my grand estate.

[Username]

Still waiting, MurkScribble!

[LordSeliph]

No, a million times no, smoking is unhealthy and should be banned

[Evan92]

(02-18-2015 06:13 AM)LordSeliph Wrote:  No, a million times no, smoking is unhealthy and should be banned

So are big macs, should those be banned as well? Where I am the smoking age was 16 until the early 2000s.

[thewake]

Allowing smoking should be a parental decision, at most.

[Aureate]

I was amazed to find such/any agreement here that young people should not be allowed to smoke. Ironically, your arguments are following the same pattern as the primary case for compulsory education, which members of this community apparently detest.

It goes like this:

(1) X is bad for all people.

(2) Young people tend to be susceptible to X.

(3) We should place special restrictions on all young people so that they cannot engage in X.

By replacing X with "uninformed voting", "irresponsible drinking", "crime", "smoking", and "ignorance", respectively, one can justify a voting age, drinking age, juvenile curfew, smoking age, and compulsory schooling age.

The problem with these conclusions is that even if premise two holds water statistically, the capable outliers are facing tremendous discrimination, the sort that would earn proponents immediate radical status if applied to any other physical trait than youth.

You can test this for yourself, but I would not recommend doing so in the presence of those whose respect you value. It's as easy as presenting the following reasoning with a straight face:

(1) Robbery is bad.

(2) Black people are disproportionately likely to rob (Statistics).

(3) Special restrictions ought to be placed on all black people to assure they don't thieve.

The fallacy is perhaps more pronounced in this socially unacceptable version of the youth argument. Its first and most obvious failure is its inconsideration of the substantial percentage--that is, the majority--of black people who can be responsible without additional limitation. In a world where we value human dignity to the utmost, we try very hard to avoid judging inwardly equal individuals differently based on outward characteristics. I can dodge this fact forever by insinuating that my opponents do not understand what a grievous thing robbery is, or by telling my own robbery sob story--wherein my poor, black cousin was caught up in a crime gang because police were not keeping a keen eye on African criminality--but equality among humans remains a stubborn adversary, and should haunt me in my sleep if I try.

To all you who defend the logic of the first argument, I hope you will be so intellectually honest as to consider the sameness of the second, and perhaps to combine your ageism with a healthy dose of racism. I can ignore bigotry, but this inconsistency is maddening.

[sswbm]

(02-18-2015 07:06 PM)Aureate Wrote:  I was amazed to find such/any agreement here that young people should not be allowed to smoke. Ironically, your arguments are following the same pattern as the primary case for compulsory education, which members of this community apparently detest.

It goes like this:

(1) X is bad for all people.

(2) Young people tend to be susceptible to X.

(3) We should place special restrictions on all young people so that they cannot engage in X.

By replacing X with "uninformed voting", "irresponsible drinking", "crime", "smoking", and "ignorance", respectively, one can justify a voting age, drinking age, juvenile curfew, smoking age, and compulsory schooling age.

The problem with these conclusions is that even if premise two holds water statistically, the capable outliers are facing tremendous discrimination, the sort that would earn proponents immediate radical status if applied to any other physical trait than youth.

You can test this for yourself, but I would not recommend doing so in the presence of those whose respect you value. It's as easy as presenting the following reasoning with a straight face:

(1) Robbery is bad.

(2) Black people are disproportionately likely to rob (Statistics).

(3) Special restrictions ought to be placed on all black people to assure they don't thieve.

The fallacy is perhaps more pronounced in this socially unacceptable version of the youth argument. Its first and most obvious failure is its inconsideration of the substantial percentage--that is, the majority--of black people who can be responsible without additional limitation. In a world where we value human dignity to the utmost, we try very hard to avoid judging inwardly equal individuals differently based on outward characteristics. I can dodge this fact forever by insinuating that my opponents do not understand what a grievous thing robbery is, or by telling my own robbery sob story--wherein my poor, black cousin was caught up in a crime gang because police were not keeping a keen eye on African criminality--but equality among humans remains a stubborn adversary, and should haunt me in my sleep if I try.

To all you who defend the logic of the first argument, I hope you will be so intellectually honest as to consider the sameness of the second, and perhaps to combine your ageism with a healthy dose of racism. I can ignore bigotry, but this inconsistency is maddening.

"Adults" shouldn't self-destruct either. No ageism here.

[MurkScribe]

First off Thank you Aureate with your well thought writing, it seems like every single post you put time, effort, and your graceful writing. To convey and examine the underlying assumptions about this argument to which I could not. And yes I do agree with this thing called logical consistency. There is no point in creating these free democratic schooling when the rest of the worlds institution is bureaucratic and oppressive such as the workplace and church. My mind and thoughts are still getting out of the dogma and the beholded myths that continues and perpetuates oppression among youth, children, adults, women, and pretty much everyone.

[brainiac3397]

Ahm. Effective bureaucracy created by advances in management and administration made many things in your life possible and guaranteed. Aka reliable.

Bureaucracy is constantly misunderstood as a generally negative concept. Its not. Bureaucracy is the institution that serves to make government from the national to local scale properly integrate thus establishing a healthy line of communication between the government and the citizens.

When there is excessive redundancy, lack of interest, managerial failures, consistent partisanship and general apathy with quality then there are problems. However an unhealthy bureaucracy is not the fault of the bureaucracy. Would you blame a machine for working less effectively when a piece breaks, when those who are supposed to be monitoring it are negligent in their duties?

A bad bureaucracy is the symptom of bad governance.

[Superkamiguru]

(11-17-2014 05:54 PM)Sharpie Wrote:  There's a lot of adults who don't understand how nicotine works and how much smoking can impact your health.

But they're still allowed to smoke...

[HSHARK]

We don't need to ban cigarettes, we need to discourage people from smoking to gradually phase out the market.

[The man]

(01-17-2017 06:23 AM)HSHARK Wrote:  We don't need to ban cigarettes, we need to discourage people from smoking to gradually phase out the market.

[James Comey]

I never really understood the appeal to smoking tobacco anyway. That shit's nasty.

[Depression101]

If it helps relieve stress, I fucking need some. It's either that, or me dropping out of school right now. Or me shooting up the fucking place. I can't stand that shithole for another week.

And I think anyone around 12-14 can make their own informed decisions. Children aren't idiots, they mostly understand the risks, it's just that they don't give a fuck. And pretty much everything in this world is destructive: fast food, candy, the education system, the ungodly amounts of carbon monoxide from factories that are turning this planet into a fucking furnace. Everybody should have freedom. And, as Benjamin Franklin said, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

[James Comey]

I'm not very fond of the American drinking age but I fear that allowing really young people to smoke/drink could have a horrible affect in that addiction rates may sore.