Denmark proposes ban on selling cigarettes to people born after 2010
euronews.com
euronews.com
Maybe Denmark can pull this off because they are a small country compared to the US. I hope we never try it, because we need to be going in the other direction: if people want to kill themselves, let them do it legally, tax it, and deny them health insurance. At least that will cut down on "crime" and all the court, legal, and police infrastructure that goes with it.
Either that, or maybe the grocery stores could give out coupons based on soft drink purchases. The coupons provide health insurance discounts and are paid for by the soft drink companies. They're the ones making money by getting people addicted to sugar so IMO they should be the ones paying for the costs.
Russia and China aren't America's big problem. Our lack of personal responsibility is a much bigger problem IMO.
Okay so literally ban it but make the punishment worse than fine or jail, that'll go over well.
The difference compared to prohibition is that, en masse, young people aren't clamoring to start smoking. I know a few people my age who vape, none who smoke cigarettes.
Then why is the law necessary?
Taking away an addictive and much-used item from a population who is in full-use mode is entirely different than never introducing it to a population that has never used it.
Banning tobacco for a population with smokers in it is hard and will lead to the same problems as prohibition did. However, the population born in 2010 are as of yet not allowed to purchase tobacco (because, they are 12 years old!), so only a vanishingly small part of them are active smokers. Never letting them purchase tobacco will be a none-change for them, their lives are not changed by this, execept for the healthier. Those few who are bent on becoming smokers, will still do so, but there's no good reason to think there are any significant number of them.
The future generations even less so.
It should be clarified that the act of smoking won't be prohibited, it is the act of selling tobacco products to someone born after 2010 that would, so there will be some black market for a little while, but it's kinda difficult to get new clients, it's not as addictive or nice a product as hard drugs are..
(As I learned when I visited the Jack Daniels distillery in dry Moore county.)
On the other hand, I understand the intention. I wonder if the same could be archived by moving the threshold slower than the speed with which people age.
Currently, the age threshold is increased by one year, every year - which effectively locks people born after a certain date out forever.
Instead, you could increase it by one year, e.g. every two years. This would allow the next few generations to cross the threshold eventually, while still "aging out" smoking in the long term.
I don't think this will pass judges if anyone who smoked illegally will demand his right to do as they wish in reference to older people.
New Zealand has already implemented this.
And have the U.S. break all treaties recognizing the special laws that apply to Native Americans?
Yeah, not going to happen. I don't even see how it's a worthy goal.
Even so, your view appears to be that that US must not pass new laws that grant Native Americans more self-determination than they currently have.
I don't know how rationally a 17 year old thinks about the relative difficulty of obtaining cigarettes for just a year until they turn 18, compared to having to obtain them illegally for the rest of their life, but with each passing year, the gap between {current average age of first cigarette} and {average age of smoker} will increase, making young smokers look more and more conspicuous.
Dedicated tobacconists would probably collapse, larger stores in high-population areas may still stock tobacco products, but for the most part I would envisage smokers would be driven to specialist stores with online ordering and firm age verification.
Additionally, it would be far easier to monitor and audit the limited number of places that do stock tobacco ("secret shopper" stings and similar) to make sure they aren't being lax in their age verification.
Essentially, by making it impossible for youths simply pay someone a few bucks + the cost of the cigarettes to purchase them, the effort barrier could be made high enough as to prevent new smokers due to lack of easy availability.
That is obvious; the expression DOB > 2010 is constant for any given individual. It doesn't get any falser with time.
Bureaucrats ...