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Originally Posted by PsYcNeT
This is such a straw-man argument it's absurd.
Honestly, this is basically the goverment stepping in and saying people aren't responsible enough to make their own decisions. Ergo, they take mind bogglingly stupid measures to ensure we, as consumers, aren't ensnared by the HORRORS OF TOBACCO.
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I would argue that teens and children who take up smoking aren't making informed descions. More to the point how many adults would start smoking if they got past thier teens and the peer pressure asscoiated with smoking?
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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Teenagers who underestimate the risks of smoking -- or overestimate the social value -- are substantially more likely than their peers to take up the habit, a new study suggests.
Researchers found that among 395 high school students they followed for two years, those who thought the health risks of smoking were fairly low, or the social benefits fairly high, were about three times more likely than their peers to start smoking.
The fact that these perceptions influence teenagers' likelihood of smoking makes sense, but until now it hadn't been clear whether this was the case.
"This is the first paper that really shows that perceptions truly predict behavior," senior researcher Dr. Bonnie L. Halpern-Felsher told Reuters Health.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/healt...4BU3NS20081231