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The United States, from a legal perspective, considers anyone at or over the age of 18 to be an adult. There are only two areas that I can think of off the top
by thatswrong0 7y ago
The United States, from a legal perspective, considers anyone at or over the age of 18 to be an adult. There are only two areas that I can think of off the top of my head where this is not the case: the sale of alcohol, and now the sale of nicotine.
Anyone who has been to college knows that the drinking age being 21 is pointless. It just means that an 18 year old who wants to drink will have someone buy it for them, or they'll go to a party and drink jungle juice, or they'll get a fake ID. Having a drinking age at all, IMO, sets up people to seriously hurt themselves when they turn 21 if their parents shelter them.
Barring that last point (since ODing on nicotine like you can on alcohol is a lot tougher), the same will now be the case for smoking / vaping.
From a safety perspective, I would rather have 18 year olds buying legitimate juul pods (although the safety of these should be regulated more heavily) than buying sketchy fake shit off the internet or second hand from a friend.
- Gatsky 7y agoI don't buy this analogy with drinking. Alcohol is fundamentally different. It is critical to reduce the number of people who get addicted to nicotine, because it is very difficult to get them off it. Despite flaunting the age limit for drinking, I think it is still the case that there are fewer 18 year olds drinking alcohol with the drinking age at 21 than there would be if the drinking age was 18, and in many ways that is all that matters. Your argument would also justify reducing the drinking age to X, because there are some people younger than X that access alcohol illegally. Importantly, a higher drinking age also stops beverage makers from targeting products to younger demographics. I disagree with the harm minimisation/safety argument because the primary harm minimisation for tobacco products comes from preventing their use at all.
- listenallyall 7y ago>> it is very difficult to get them off it and quitting drinking is easy? AA exists in every corner of the globe, for a reason.
- anoncake 7y agoAlmost everyone who smokes is addicted, not so for alcohol.
- Gatsky 7y agoIf you don’t understand the difference then read these two articles: https://ourworldindata.org/smoking https://ourworldindata.org/smoking https://ourworldindata.org/alcohol-consumption https://ourworldindata.org/alcohol-consumption
- kazinator 7y ago"Smoking deaths typically affect older populations: more than half of deaths occurred in people over 70 years old; 93% were over 50 years." LOL! Death from age-related natural causes also affect older populations. Most of those who die of natural causes are over fifty.
- listenallyall 7y agoNo thanks. What is the point you are trying to make? That alcohol-related vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death among 16-24 year old Americans? (http://www.faddintl.org/nationalstats.html http://www.faddintl.org/nationalstats.html) For whatever it's worth, smokers generally have 25 years in which to quit, before any serious negative consequences arise (and often more like 40+ years). Alcohol causes massive amounts of physical and emotional damage to young people, directly and also indirectly (inflicted by drinkers onto non-drinkers), much of it fatal.
- ac29 7y agoIn my opinion, setting the alcohol/nicotine age to 21 isn't so much to prevent 18 year olds from accessing it, its to prevent 14-16 year olds from access. Every high school has some 18 year olds - products legally available to them will trickle down to younger kids much easier than those that require purchasers to be 21.