Quote:
Originally Posted by Wastedyouth
Making it illegal is really the incorrect route. In my opinion. Continue to spend that money on education of the dangers. It's really the only way to do it.
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I totally disagree with this one. Especially since you can accomplish the same thing without really spending a penny.
Education will only get you so far, the only way to stop smoking is to make sure it's not available. In the interim while cigarettes are still available to some people will kids still take up smoking? Sure.
But the availability and that number is going to go down over time.
Sure next year you'll have 18 year olds buying smokes for their 17 year old friends, but eventually those 17 year olds are going to need 40 year olds to buy them smokes, so that access is going to go away pretty steadily.
In the meantime sure, keep up with the education, to reduce the numbers further and watch the problem go away even quicker, and eventually you won't have to spend any money educating people because a) they won't be available, and b) by that point everyone will be saying "can you actually believe you used to be able to sell things that the only function was to give you cancer?"
And yes, I realize that the same arguments could be made for alcohol, and maybe one day we will go that route as public opinion shifts. But not doing away with every societal ill, is no reason not to chip away at the ones most people agree we would be better without.