In the United States, tobacco use is responsible for roughly 440,000 deaths per year. Additionally, about 8.6 million people in the United States suffer from some sort of tobacco-caused illness. Clearly, tobacco products, cigarettes especially, are very unhealthy. In fact, about $96 billion dollars are spent each year on public and private healthcare for smoking related issues. And although tobacco products bring in immense amounts of tax revenue, this is money that should not, and would not be spent on healthcare if it were not for the mass use of these tobacco products.
Despite the major issues that tobacco causes, I do not think it is the right move by the Mayor of New York City to enforce this law to raise the purchasing age to 21. Just as when Mayor Bloomberg proposed the ban on large soft drinks, it simply is not the right approach. For example, if someone wants 64 ounces of soda, but the 64 ounce containers are not allowed, they can simply buy two or three smaller bottles, and they have what they want. In the case of the tobacco age increase, someone who is underage can simply leave the city limits to buy, or, as it is very easy to do in the city, ask someone older to buy them. It is a futile attempt to reduce the problem.
Although I think the law is wrong, it means well. In my opinion however, there is a much better approach to fixing the issues with tobacco death and illness in this country. If more effective programs can be started to educate children on the dangers of tobacco use before they are tempted to experiment, the illness and death statistics will decrease because use will decrease. I don't believe that the government implementing laws on personal choices like this is the best way to govern a people. Educating the people and helping them make the better decisions on their own will be much better in the long run. Instead of young rebellious teens being upset that they can't buy cigs anymore, in a few years we could have a group of teens who know the harmful effects of tobacco and avoid it because they want to be healthy.
I agree with you. People should take their own personal responsibility and make the decision not to smoke because it is the best choice for their health, not to mention the health of those whom they are smoking around.
ReplyDeleteThat is one thing that our government, Republicans and Democrats alike, continues to forget about, personal responsibility. People should do things because they want to do them. The government loves to play the "morally right" card. Well it isn't very moral to put guns to the heads of the people to make them do what you'd like them to do, even if what you'd like them to do is good for their health in the end. Our founders would not have imagined a state that has such interference in the personal lives of Americans. I'm not saying that babies should be allowed to smoke but when you're 18, you're old enough to die for your country, in the military, as a police officer, or as a fire fighter, so you should be seen as responsible enough to smoke or drink.
The scary thing to me is that some people have become pretty comfortable with the government telling them what to do, and even lobby for them to tell them more of what they should do, just because they may not do tobacco products. However, they may be singing a different tune when the government starts invading something personal to them.
This may have been sort of long, and I know I went on a tangent, however, I do agree with your points. Good post, my friend.
I agree with you that there is a better approach to this situation, however I do agree that the law will at least help try and prevent or discourage smoking.
ReplyDeleteAmen to that brotha, education is the way to go.
ReplyDeleteBottom line: people are free to do as they please; we are not in a totalitarian state. Any negative effects from their choices should be their problems, but it becomes the fault of the society if the society never enforced the proper education. Let's go about doing that and clean this mess up, shall we? ... haha
One of the reasons that people of a left libertarian persuasion are skeptical of the welfare state is not that they do not think that people should be helped out. Rather, they are skeptical of this because it gives the government a reason to create prohibitions and engage generally in paternalistic behavior. If the government pays for such things in the form of healthcare expenditures, then they argue that it has a better case for regulating such things. This would be the case with everything from soda to cigarettes, and indeed Bloomberg specifically cites Medicaid costs as a main factor in his policies. He actually would have preferred a soda tax, I believe, to an outright ban. I wonder if others would be more supportive of a tax rather than a ban?
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