posted
Actually, I don't think so. Our electricity comes from hydroelectric power. Whatever it may do to the fish, it doesn't produce carcinogens. But yeah, you have a point.
It would be theoretically possible to ban the sale of perfume, but that would never fly. So then, how do we regulate the use of it in public? I guess everyone who smells strongly could be required to take a shower, but that would start getting really repressive after awhile. I think it's best to "regulate" this sort of thing socially rather than legally. It's socially unacceptable now to smell of body odor, but not illegal. Nevertheless, these social rules do a good job of preventing a smelly populace.
Posts: 3546 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
In this case, the law is wrong. Either raise the age of everything else back to 21, or lower the drinking age to 18.
Posts: 281 | Registered: Aug 2004
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There's evidence that the brain doesn't stop developing and maturing until the age of 25. Much as I'd hate it, should we consider raising the age-of-everything to that? Wouldn't that be far less arbitrary than 18 or 21?
Posts: 3546 | Registered: Jul 2002
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The higher the age requirements, the less and less people will wait till they are of legal age to partake of these substances.
Posts: 1094 | Registered: Mar 2004
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As Stryker has already noted, that gets into the issue of practicality, but morally there would be nothing wrong with it. I wish my parents and/or the law would have realized caffeine really can get one high, and forced me to wait longer than I did. I do not really regret drinking a few times (and smoking tobacco once) when I was seventeen, but they could have waited a year or two.
Posts: 281 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
Truly, a contention that I've had with the anti-smoking movement has been this...
We all no cigarettes are bad for you. You'll find nary a smoker who doesn't sheepishly say "Yep, they're killing me" if they are asked.
But a few decades ago, cigarette manufacturers were made to introduce filtered cigarettes by the federal government to reduce, at least somewhat, the health problems they caused.
Since then, the tobacco industry, in light of massive waiting litigation, has had to take the rather nonsensical (downright lying) stance that "There's no real proof that cigarettes are hazardous."
They know they are lying. We know they are lying. But they have people ready to fight that fight at a moment's notice, and they are very, very prepared. It's because they know that in today's climate to admit such a thing would be the death knell for their industry.
Why is this important? Simply because the industry could not even try to research a "safer" cigarette without at some point admitting that cigarettes were unsafe. Remember, that is the Surgeon General's warning on the packs, not the tobacco companies'.
So, adult smokers are caught between a rock and a hard place. If they want to smoke, they've got to run the risks (and the cancer part is not guaranteed to happen, nor the emphysema). A safer cigarette can't and won't be made simply because of the liability it sets up for the tobacco industry.
RJR had to pretty much bury the Eclipse smokeless cigarettes years ago, although they still do a bit of guerilla advertising for them in "smoke free" areas like airport lounges. You'll see someone smoking one with the pack on the table... but you can't just go and buy a pack anywhere... very curious.
Posts: 472 | Registered: Aug 2004
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I don't have the time to debate right now, but I'll definately be checking the thread later (gotta put the goblins in bed soon).
I do have to relate what was to me a mildly amusing anti-cigarette commerical, however. The commerical says something about how in New York they have to sell (crap - forget the actual wording) a "safer" cigarette because cigarettes kill people by starting fires in bed. It then went on to ask, "Why do you sell something that kills your customers?" Mr. Opera (who doesn't smoke, never has, and never will) just about lost it laughing. We both agreed that smoking in bed and killing yourself was more the fault of a badly thought-out decision, and something that shouldn't be put on cigarette manufacturers' shoulders.
posted
I pretty much agree with Danzig on most of what he said.
I don't think drugs should be illegal. We spend too much money putting people in jail for doing/selling drugs when we should be using that money to help drug users with their addictions.
Posts: 204 | Registered: Dec 2004
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Honestly I do not think addicts really deserve government-funded treatment. Either they knew the risks, or they were irresponsible enough to start in ignorance. I do agree the money would be better spent on programs, especially voluntary ones, but I do not think most people started because someone held a gun to their head.
Posts: 281 | Registered: Aug 2004
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Stryker: you are a fan of bending the truth. Was Mary Ellis not a minor??
I think that marijuana has no reason to be illegal if tobacco and alcohol are legal. I am much more weary of other drugs. I do not think drug use should be a crime punishable my jail. I am ok with the fact it is a crime to use drugs besids marijuana, but why not a fine or community service? It makes sense to me that drug dealers are put in jail. That might not make a whole lot of sense to other people, but I think it is worse to sell a harmful substance then it is to use it.
Posts: 1015 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
Narcotic analgesics, while being slightly faster addicting than alcohol (and less so than tobacco) are some of the least damaging drugs around... assuming access to an adequate, pure supply. People lucky enough to get adequate prescriptions for legitimate pain get a tolerance as fast as recreational users, but because they have a permission slip it is not "addiction", it is tolerance or at most dependence. Cocaine HCl is in between caffeine and alcohol as far as the speed, and around alcohol as far as reinforcement goes, with no true physical withdrawals. With the possible exceptions of cocaine freebase and smoked methamphetamine, nicotine is the most addictive drug known to man.
Posts: 281 | Registered: Aug 2004
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quote:There's evidence that the brain doesn't stop developing and maturing until the age of 25. Much as I'd hate it, should we consider raising the age-of-everything to that? Wouldn't that be far less arbitrary than 18 or 21?
The problem with that is that we really need younger people than 25 in the military.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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I live in Australia and we have no smoking in any public buildings apart from bars...and that is about to be changed for the health of the workers i think... though here 18 is the age where you can smoke/drink/drive/go to jail etc... i don't think you can ban smoking or drinking, but the laws and taxes and education campaigns can make it a harder choice. Already we have no advertising for smoking with big warnings on the packets and soon won't be able to advertise alcohol on TV at least...
on a recent trip we actually had to leave the airports at strange (and cold) hours of the morning in Vienna, London and Scotland because the smokers ruled and we who like fresh air and get asthma attacks from cigarette smoke were the ones punished for not smoking. likewise we couldn't find a place to have a coffee or eat anything that didn't choke us...
if a person decides to smoke they should be the ones disadvantaged, not the people who don't want to passively smoke a hundred different chemicals going through their bodies without filters... it's a basic human right to have fresh air.
That said i don't judge my friends who do smoke, it is their choice as long as it does not adversely affect those around them.
Posts: 46 | Registered: Dec 2004
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posted
Die, kill, pay your taxes (protection money), vote, but do not drink. You have to be responsible to do that.
Posts: 281 | Registered: Aug 2004
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quote:There's evidence that the brain doesn't stop developing and maturing until the age of 25. Much as I'd hate it, should we consider raising the age-of-everything to that? Wouldn't that be far less arbitrary than 18 or 21?
That seems just as arbitrary to me. The drinking/smoking/driving/whatever ages are the way they are because those are the ages people are responsible enough to accept those risks (supposedly). In reality, a lot of 18 year-olds could handle alcohol, and a lot of 25 year-olds can't. So really any age you pick is an arbitrary one. Personally, I think 18 should be the age for both drinking alcohol and smoking alcohol or cannibis, but maybe that's just as arbitrary.
Posts: 1592 | Registered: Jan 2001
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