Minimum smoking age to rise

Aventinian

I think it should be the other way around - lower the drinking age to 16, let youngsters drink in public bars (although perhaps keep the age of 18 for buying from off-sales) and keep them off the streets.

It's a bit of a sorry situation where you can live on your own, die for your country, have a wife and children and work a full-time job - yet still be legally prohibited from having a beer or smoking a cigarette.

The Stalinist Executive fail to realise that the more they criminalise ordinary people, the less respect the law will have.

RadgeJougal

So, since primary school children continue to smoke at well under 16, raising the age to 18 is somehow going to stop this?

Sounds like the diseased logic the Labour party uses about Buckfast - ban Buckie and the problem goes away. Rolling Eyes

Buckie is the symptom, not the cause. Many are already breaking the law, so how will creating another law help prevent the violation of underage drinking? Ban Buckie, and it'll be Bacardi Breezer, or Vodka and another banned substance.

RadgeJougal

Perhaps if the age limit had been 18 instead of 16, I would have stopped smoking at 15 instead of 13. Wink

Morph

i agree with Aventinian, i mean this will help no-one, the issue must be tackled not just put back using stupid legislation. Drinking is another issue which could be looked at in lowering the age of purchase in Pub thus allowing it to be more supervised, however in some pubs i've been in Landlords will serve you till you fall down, so this may not help

RadgeJougal

Shopkeepers have long made a good profit out of underage smokers and drinkers - how's this going to stop them.

SLG

They'd be better off trying to strictly enforce the 16 yr limit than increasing it.

pogofish

More pointless tokenism I'm afraid. Sad

Morph

I agree, you think it'll even make it through the debates in Parliament

RadgeJougal

sandmountainslim

!!! BREAD IS DANGEROUS !!!
True facts about bread:

1. More than 98 percent of convicted felons are bread users.

2. Fully HALF of all children who grow up in bread-consuming households score below average on standardized tests.

3. In the 18th century, when virtually all bread was baked in the home, the average life expectancy was less than 50 years; infant mortality rates were unacceptably high; many women died in childbirth; and diseases such as typhoid, yellow fever, and influenza ravaged whole nations.

4. More than 90 percent of violent crimes are committed within 24 hours of eating bread.

5. Bread is made from a substance called "dough." It has been proven that as little as one pound of dough can be used to suffocate a mouse. The average person eats more bread than that in one month!

6. Primitive tribal societies that have no bread exhibit a low incidence of cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, and osteoporosis.

7. Bread has been proven to be addictive. Subjects deprived of bread and given only water to eat begged for bread after as little as two days.

8. Bread is often a "gateway" food item, leading the user to "harder" items such as butter, jelly, peanut butter, and even cold cuts.

9. Bread has been proven to absorb water. Since the human body is more than 90 percent water, it follows that eating bread could lead to your body being taken over by this absorptive food product, turning you into a soggy, gooey bread-pudding person.

10. Newborn babies can choke on bread.

11. Bread is baked at temperatures as high as 400 degrees Fahrenheit! That kind of heat can kill an adult in less than one minute.

12. Most bread eaters are utterly unable to distinguish between significant scientific fact and meaningless statistical babbling.

In light of these frightening statistics, it has been proposed that the following bread restrictions be made:

1. No sale of bread to minors.

2. A nationwide "Just Say No To Toast" campaign, complete celebrity TV spots and bumper stickers.

3. A 300 percent federal tax on all bread to pay for all the societal ills we might associate with bread.

4. No animal or human images, nor any primary colors (which may appeal to children) may be used to promote bread usage.

5. The establishment of "Bread-free" zones around schools.

Barny Rubble

Avatar

I agree with Aventinian - its not like you dont find 14 year olds or younger drinking in the streets - the same will go for smoking - you would be as well decreasing the age limit for drinking to 16 - increasing powers to make sure pupils that are caught drunk at school are expelled/suspended and whilst at it legalise cannabis, ecstacy, speed, magic mushrooms,lsd and heroin (in controlled environments)