Legal Smoking Age Options

[tkproduce]

Thought I might as well have one on smoking as there's one on drinking.
Most of Europe the legal age is 16.
I believe it's 20 or 21 in the States.
I had my first one when I was 13 or 14, but I never got addicted, although I have a few sometimes with my friends.

[*Kathleen*]

exactly...

I've had a lot of advice from teachers about what smoking does to your body throughout elementary and middle school, including a disgusting picture of what smoking has done to people in different parts of the body. So by the time I was 14, I was totally against it and I thought I'd never touch a cigarette in my life.

However, it didn't take too much time till I did start having the occasional smoke. Stupid? Well, I don't agree that grades at school have anything to do with intelligence, but if they do, I've been getting straight As throughout my life and smoking hasn't changed anything. Low self-esteem/wrong friends? I have plenty of friends, some that smoke, some that don't (in about a 50/50 ratio). They're all part of the same "group", showing that we respect our own choices and are aware that you can't judge a person by the choices they make.

Just because I've been taught of it doesn't make much of a difference to what I choose to do in the future, and as dasturbd pointed out, you'll all have tried one by the time you're 17/18 and some of you may have taken it up. Obviously I'm not encouraging it and rather have you not start at all. I'm justing saying that you shouldn't rule out the possibility that you might.

Back to the question I asked before - how would you propose to stop people smoking? Educate them so that they understand the consequences? I understand the consequences and probably know just as much as any of you, if not more. So what was wrong with me?

Okay, so the "people who smoke are stupid" remark was from me, but I'm here to justify that I think teenagers who smoke are stupid. Yes, I agree that you have the right to make your own decision, but...this is about what age do you think it should be legal to smoke (or buy cigarettes). I believe it should be older than twenty-one because by then, people will be mature enough to decide, much like yourself, dasturbd. From going through the high school experience now, I see a bunch of morons (sorry if I offend anyone, but hear me out) who sit there, listening in health class, when a discussion of peer pressure is in place. Of course, those teenagers that listen and smoke anyways give off this "rebel" attitude, thinking they're above the law. They're not. It's fine if you want to smoke when you're older. Hey, if you don't want to listen to the smoking ads on TV, then fine. I respect you, dasturbd, because you are trying to stop smoking, and I apologize for anything I might've said that offended you, but my direction is towards teenagers. Sixteen years ago (when you started), I'm sure the knowledge of cigarettes wasn't as enforced as it is today. I can understand how you got started on them. I can understand how anyone before this generation got hooked on cigarettes. I don't blame them whatsoever. I know it's hard to stop, and they didn't know the affects tobacco had on their health back then because no one knew. Still, would you not agree that today, smoking hazards have a tremendous impact on society? So let's look at your point of view, tkproduce. You've tried it. You knew the risks. I ask you: why do you still do it? Yes, I'm sure there will be people that smoke in the future, but you can't assume that the others that are complaining about cigarette smoking truly aren't going to touch one in their lives.