California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a bill raising the smoking age to 21. The law goes into effect in June.
First off, I turn 21 on July 18th. This bill goes into effect on June 9th. So for the next month, I am able to buy tobacco, but then there's a 39 day period where it's illegal before I am once again able to buy tobacco. That makes tons of sense.
The vast majority of proponents of this bill say that this will result in less tobacco-related deaths and tobacco usage among young adults 18-20 years old. While I'm sure the numbers will drop a little bit, can anyone honestly argue that they believe the drop will be anything significant?
According to a survey conducted by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, some 90 percent of tobacco users start before the age of 21, and about 80 percent first try tobacco before age 18. Wait, 80 percent try tobacco before 18? So 80 percent already use it underage? I find it pretty hard to believe that raising the age to 21 is really going to do anything to decrease that number. Hell, it'll probably even raise it.
Another thing that California lawmakers either blew aside or were too stupid to understand was that teenagers and young adults under the age of 21 drink excessively, even with it being illegal. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 70 percent of young adults admit to having had at least one drink by the time they turn 18. And while young people drink less often than adults, they drink more than adults when they do, at about five drinks a sitting. And numerous studies show that more than 40 percent of college students have binged drank at least once in the past two weeks. Just in the 30 minutes it's taken for me to write this, I've heard three different people throw away numerous glass bottles in the dumpsters of my "dry" dorm here on campus. But wait, I thought alcohol was illegal for those under 21? Why aren't us young adults following the rules?
Oh yeah, because we're young adults. We don't care if drinking or smoking is unhealthy or illegal because we're going to do them anyway. It's just the reality of being young adults. We're young and immature, and we just want to have fun. If something is illegal, then we'll find a way to do it. We'll get a fake ID, we'll have someone 21 buy for us, etc. Telling someone they can't doing something is just going to piss them off. If the government really wanted to make a difference, they'd focus more on education and less on punishments and restrictions. Punishing people and not working with them is a huge reason why our prison populations are overpopulated.
In all honestly, I don't like smoking. I smoke a cigar or a pipe on special occasions, and that's about it. I understand smoking is incredibly bad for you. But people should have the freedom to chose. If they want to screw up their lungs and get cancer, that's up to them. The government shouldn't have to tell us how to run our lives. We should be able to figure that out on our own.
