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Comment by bvaldivielso | Hacker News Reader

What makes you think that laws prohibiting alcohol to minors aren't useful? Those laws don't have to completely eliminate alcohol consumption by minors to be successful, they just have to make it less likely to happen. My gut feeling is that alcohol consumption among teenagers would be higher if it wasn't banned, though I don't have any data to back my claim.

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I don't get the cynicism either. In the US cigarette usage has gone down tremendously through the decades as laws have gotten more restrictive and advertising more out there. I'm sure I would eat less junk food if it was less accessible.

It's better to raise the cost than attempt access regulations as Mexico is doing. When it comes to food, access regulations are a nightmare to implement and enforce by comparison to taxes (which can be introduced in a fairly smooth, stealthy manner, and then gradually raised to experiment with consumption consequences). Especially when it comes to blatant non-essentials like cigarettes and junk food. You'll get a very nice direct reduction in consumption out of cost increases up to a point. Besides that, there's an excellent argument that junk food should not be actually banned for children (An 11 year old shouldn't be allowed to ever buy a bag of chips? That's some extreme government overreach).

If you're the US, step one is to ban high fructose corn syrup in food as being unsafe for human consumption. Step two, increase the cost of junk food via taxes. The US allowed its obesity epidemic to get out of control by making junk food too inexpensive and allowing high fructose corn syrup to be put into too many products. If Doritos cost $8 per bag instead of $4, people will eat a lot fewer bags; if boxes of Little Debbie snack cakes cost $5 instead of $2, people will buy fewer boxes. Regulating sugar in relation to calories in a packaged consumer food item, may also work quite effectively as a simple slider to test (just begin by gently nudging it downward, see what happens).

My impression is that teenage drinking and smoking was really huge in say, the 80s compared to today.

Frankly, often when I hear somebody like the commenter above I think they may have had some rowdy teenage years in the 80s or thereabouts and is kind of projecting that onto today's youth. "The laws don't work!" Maybe it wouldn't have worked for them. But in the time since...

Although, I don't think it's realistic to expect the laws to get consumption to zero. Maybe it's not even strictly the goal. Reduction, or mild taboo, is not the same as total elimination. People can still buy their kids sugary snacks. I give my kids sugary snacks in small amounts, but might support such a ban, because childhood and adult obesity is a pretty serious problem.

It's worked. Almost no-one I know smokes, and it's uncool to smoke.

Do you not see why this comment is complete anecdata?

Do you not see that anecdata is also sometimes correlated with real data? That we may be able to look around us and at life experience and observe real trends?

Here's what I get from some quick googling.

Decline in underage drinking, 1991-2013: https://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/surveillance101/Unde...

Youth use of cigarettes declining (though I believe I have read that vaping counter-acts this trend when looking at all nicotine products): https://www.hhs.gov/ash/oah/adolescent-development/substance...

Both of your links seem to have to do with the United States

and I was more specifically commenting towards they who are apparently the arbitrator of "cool and uncool"

Yes, I personally am talking only about the US in this thread. From what I have personally seen of Europeans younger than I am, for example, it seems like they are much more likely to smoke cigarettes than an American of the same age.

Since the article is about Mexico... I have spent substantial time in Spanish speaking places. But I am unaware of current trends in Mexico, haven't been there in particular since 2006. Probably lots of smokers. Latin America tends to have more smoking than here too. I suppose they did invent the stuff.

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