NYC will raise the age at which people can buy cigarettes from 18 to 21.
The only good thing about this is that it brings the age in line with the age of drinking. But, c'mon, folks — if someone can enroll in the military and get married and take on a full-time job and vote for President and sign legal contracts … then I think we really need to leave the question of whether they ought to be smoking (or, for that matter, drinking) to them as well.
And, yes, that's all dangerous, with possible life-changing consequences — but so are all those other things I mentioned.
I am no fan of smoking, by any means — but I can't cognitively justify this.
New York to raise cigarette sale age
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That's really silly. I think it makes more sense to lower the drinking age than to raise the smoking age.
+Brittany Constable I concur. Not because I necessarily want people drinking earlier, but because the law is easily circumvented in many cases, and it's inconsistent with other responsibilities we assume 18yos are ready for.
I actually wouldn't mind people drinking earlier. They would learn their limits in a safe space, and discover that alcohol isn't a magical fluid that makes your life so much better. We have this weird relationship with alcohol that mystifies it and mythologizes it, and then turn kids loose at 21 with no guidance other than "drink responsibly," without even any context for what that entails. Countries where alcohol is just another beverage don't have the binge drinking or abuse problems that we do.