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Walsh looks to raise age for buying tobacco products to 21
By adamg on Wed, 11/18/2015 - 4:00pm
That includes the new vaping stuff, Walsh said today:
We know the consequences of tobacco use are real and can be devastating. These proposed changes send a strong message that Boston takes the issue of preventing tobacco addiction seriously, and I hope that message is heard throughout Boston and across the entire country.
The Boston Public Health Commission will hold a public hearing on Dec. 3 and then vote on Dec. 17.
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Comments
FOR THE CHILDREN
What's next? Banning high heels, mini skirts, music, dancing, and FUN?
We're on track for "Footloose
We're on track for "Footloose II - No Fun in the Hub"
Dancing is already banned
Unless you have a license allowing it.
Might as well
Raise the voting age too!
Yup
You can't drink until you're 21. You can't smoke until you're 21. In Connecticut, you'll be tried in juvenile court until you're 21.
Let's just change the legal age to 21 and be done with it. No voting, no driving, no s-e-x and birth control, no buying cough medicine, no tats, no piercings.
Like that ever worked
What you end up with is people having sex without birth control so that their parents will have tolet them get married.
Worked for my parents - until they got to the part where they weren't really mature or secure enough to have kids.
So that's the explanation we
So that's the explanation we've been looking for.
woooosh
woooosh
No whoosh
I get the intended "irony", but I put this out there because of people like you.
Let me guess - you are too young to know a time when this WAS how things worked. Like totally. Like for reals.
Good
Good
I wish they would start
I wish they would start ticketing people for littering when they throw butts on the ground countless times per day and enforcing the existing smoking bans in places like the common. That filthy behavior doesn't fly in cleaner countries like Japan.
you can get drafted and die for your country at 18
but smoke a cig at that age in boston? fuck that
The Govt can kill you
But
WilliamPhilip Morris cannot.*Phillip
*Phillip
"Have nothing in your house
"Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful." -william morris
LOL - Thank you
I done screwed up.
Fixed.
You'll be able to smoke in Boston at 18
The proposal isn't to make it illegal to smoke. It's to make it illegal to buy.
There's public good and a sacrifice for a greater good when enlisting in the armed forces. Neither is true with smoking.
I still don't understand
Tobacco laws, considering you can legally use tobacco products at the age of like 15 or 16 but can't buy until your 18....and soon to be 21...
My only problem with this is
My only problem with this is the usual; a soldier home from active duty can't have a cigarette?
A person can vote, but can't have a cigarette?
Are they an adult or not?
How about
We let people make mistakes and grow up so that they grow up and make fewer mistakes?
Nahhh ... we need a priest or a Mayor or a parent telling us all what to do at all times, lest we develop that dreaded self-control and that satanic critical thinking!
Black Market for cigarettes
This will have the side effect of creating a new black market for cigarettes, the Public Health Commission will then order a crackdown by the police. The police will do what they are told and arrest young men for selling loosies. Does the name Eric Garner ring a bell!
Will this apply to tomacco as
Will this apply to tomacco as well?
Divergence
It's fascinating that tobacco is slowly becoming criminalized and taboo, while at the same time marijuana is becoming legalized and accepted.
We have known for 40-50 years that smoking kills
Or causes cancer. Or any other list of ailments. If you are dumb enough to chose to smoke in this day and age, I say have at it. Darwin is simply working his magic and the future will be all that better for it.
Except smokers kill others by
Except smokers kill others by second hand smoke and the many fires they start.
Yes and no
"We" "know", but we don't. That is, some of us know rather a lot about smoking-related illness, and a few of us know that fatal smoking-related illness is inevitable if you smoke and don't quit. Most people believe that smoking-related illness is a matter of the odds: it might get you, it might not. They believe that smoking increases their odds of getting cancer, but does not make it inevitable, and they are right about that. They are mostly ignorant of the fact that it also increases their odds of stroke, and they are almost all ignorant of the fact that it causes COPD in every single person who smokes, and that COPD is fatal. This information is indeed out there in some form, but it isn't being effectively conveyed, especially to young people -- the focus is still on the big C, and young people particularly look at cancer and figure that it's a dice roll, and if it doesn't come up snake eyes, you're completely in the clear.
Not how that works
Unfortunately for your Darwinian scenario, they can breed long before the cancer gets them, so no impact to evolution.
Double post
deleted
520 website error for a brief moment.
Maybe
I wonder if this is more about cigars or 'rollies' now that marijuana use in public is increasing.
Mayor Backtrack
Can't wait for him to walk this back in a week just like he did with Boston2024, IndyBoston, the Syrian refugees, etc...
I wish his bosses would just give Marty a little more direction from the start so he looked more competent.
#worldclasscity
Typical Democrat
"Do as I say because I'm smarter than you." Is he really that (expletive) bored with being the mayor of Boston? It sounds like a cool job to me. Is there really so little to do that he's going to try to exercise dominion over 18-year old tobacco users? Get a (expletive) life.
As opposed to the typical Republican
Who preaches family values while getting a BJ at an airport bathroom, or caught with a prostitute, or doing crystal meth with his paid for boytoy at his church, or getting paid to be a spokesperson for abstinence only program while getting pregnant with your second, out-of-wedlock child, while engaged to somebody who is not the father of either first child or the second.
Who?
are you talking about? Do you actually know this person?
Or
Lecturing about women's rights/equality after your husband took advantage of a 20 year old intern and you didn't divorce him.
You can play that game with any political party, or any large group in general, there are bad apples in all.
Guessing...
Guessing they're all actual cases - the last one sounds like Bristol Palin or maybe is a reference to Sarah?
Hardly liberal
But, in any case, be thankful that he doesn't have any kids to overprotect into oblivion.
I understand that Marty's
I understand that Marty's just trying to keep tobacco out of the hands of young people but it really won't work. Back when I was 14 (I'm 20 now) my friends and I would hang out in front of convenience stores doing that old "hey mister" routine. It usually worked after the fifth or sixth attempt. That was until we found out that the other convenience store up the street didn't care that we were 14 and would sell to us anyway. Enacting this kind of law would do very little to combat the actual problem, but I guess it makes Walsh look good. Tobacco, and cigarettes especially are becoming a dying fad anyway, just let nature take it's course. Criminalizing just pushes things underground and then you have even less regulation and control over it. I'd say just keep the age at 18 and focus on more important issues, like drug and alcohol education programs.
Except that it does work
There's loads of public health data that show that increasing the age to purchase smoking decreases smoking by youth. Not just data from other countries -- there are many jurisdictions in America where you've got to be more than 18 to buy smokes. For examaple:
Alabama: 19
Alaska: 19
Hawai'i Big Island: 21. Rest of HI goes to 21 in 2016
New Jersey: 19
New York:
* New York City: 21
* Suffolk County: 21
* Onondata County: 19
* Nassau County: 19
Utah: 19
Massachusetts:
* At least 80 cities and towns have made it 21 to buy, including the following communities adjacent to Boston: Milton, Canton, Dedham, Needham, Newton, Brookline, and Cambridge.
The studies are clear. Raising the age of purchase to 21 reduces smoking by young people. It doesn't eliminate it, but it chips away at the norm.
Those 'young people'
are officially, legally ADULTS; it's not your place, or the governments, to lecture them or pass laws that infringe on their rights as an adult. THEY AREN'T CHILDREN, and shouldn't be treated as such.
If you feel so strongly about potentially dangerous products like tobacco (does this include specifically nicotine, like, for example, ecigarettes or vapes?) than campaign to BAN these products. The list is pretty long, and it's not just tobacco or nicotine. But organized crime will thank you. They love it when do gooders and governments ban things.
I only scanned the Constitution, including amendments
I don't see any reference to the right to bear cigarms, nor do I see Mr. Walsh or myself lecturing minors about their tobacco choices.
There's no one age when someone becomes an adult in America. We allow different adult-like actions or enforce different adult-like consequences at different ages for different items. Drinking is 21. Voting is 18. Driving is 16-ish. Enlisting in the armed forces is 17. Being charged as an adult is at the discretion of the district attorney. Dropping out of school is 16.
P.S. As for e-cigs, Cambridge, Newton, Brookline, Dedham, Canton, Needham all treat them as tobacco within their laws, so 21+ to purchase those too. I'm not sure how Milton treats e-cigs.
18 years of age
THE LAW CONSIDERS YOU AN ADULT, with all the adult responsibilities that entails. It doesn't have to be specifically mentioned in the constitution, it's de facto, implicitly implied.
Except for all of the specific places where it doesn't
as have been discussed all over this thread. Drinking, voting, enlisting, driving, and tried as an adult -- all different ages.
What about e-cigarettes (all
What about e-cigarettes (all nicotine products instead of just tobacco). That is what has seen a huge increase in addicts recently, as advertising and cheap chinese e-cigs lure teens to the new nicotine vehicle (as well as formaldehyde and some of the other toxins in e-cigs).
Do you have hard verifiable
Do you have hard verifiable statistics and studies from reputable, non-biased sources to back up your claims?
formaldehyde: scary word, people automatically think of dead bodies in morgues. Actually, it's used in many consumer products, as are many other 'toxic' substances, both synthetic and organic in origin. In the tiny doses they usually occur, they are harmless.
Also, SOME ecigs and vape juices originate in China, most in the US don't, that is the stuff you buy at brick and mortar retail stores. And in fact, the ingredients of ecigs and vape juices are really very simple.
Will No One Think Of The Children
But to hell with the adults who might want to go to say... Long Island.
But keep on projecting Marty... You can't have fun so the rest of us can't neither.
what??
Are you saying that doing something to kill yourself is fun???
Better approach: cancel
Better approach: cancel health insurance for anyone who chooses to smoke.
Thanks Daddy.
.
Ridiculous
18, you are an emancipated, legal adult.You should be able to buy tobacco and booze. End of story. And no, I'm not a teenager, I'm well above 21. We need to stop babying young adults.
If the mayor and city council insists on treating emancipated adults as children, then the other laws should slso change,and they should, for example, still be tried in juvenile court. And they shouldn't be allowed to join the military or be drafted or sign up for selective service until they're 21. The age of consent for sex should also be raised to 21.
I've said it once
and I'll say it again.
If smoking is so bad for you.. why haven't we banned it entirely yet? Why isn't Marty just trying to do that. What's good for "kids" is good for "Adults" also. It isn't going to stop them anyways... hell, 18 doesn't stop many kids as is.
Growing very tired of Marty and him trying to make Boston a nanny city.. let people make their own decisions and come to their own devices. Stop trying to tell people what they can, and can't do.. it's silly.
They'll never ban it, too
They'll never ban it, too much revenue.
I mean it would be laughable if it weren't so sad. Cigarettes like the lottery generate revenue the city/state rely on and on the other side of their mouths they demonize the very thing they would miss if it were gone.
I guess it takes a politician to make sense of it all.
The cat's out of the bag already
You're probably right about the revenue, but the real reason that prohibition (of tobacco) won't work is that Prohibition (of alcohol) didn't work.
except we're all paying for this
Everytime someone gets cancer from smoking cigerettes,, no matter what their age, everyone pays more in health insurance.
Exposing more lies
The last round of banning cigarettes (from restaurants, parks, etc) was done on the pre-text of second hand smoke being harmful to workers.
But now they're lumping e-Cigs in on the ban. My understanding is that eCigs don't have any of the harmful properties of second hand smoke. (please correct me if this is wrong)
Therefore, it's clear that second hand smoke wasn't the real reason for the original bans, and people who claimed it was were lying to us.
For the record, I don't smoke, I prefer clear air in bars/restaurants, and I think smokers who throw butts on the ground should be made to go around and lick them back up off the ground, then keep them in their pocket or car ash-tray. I just dislike hypocritical politicians and the nanny state even more.
I dislike...
I dislike people who use the term "nanny state", nearly as much as I dislike people who moan about the "PC police". Or "political correctness run amuck". To these people, things are always running amuck. It's a very vivid fantasy world of colorful imaginary monsters all pushing and shoving each other for the chance to take away YOUR RIGHTS!!!1!1!!!
It's not a fantasy. It's very
It's not a fantasy. It's very real, and it's about CONTROL, getting people used to being bullied, lectured, having personal freedoms curtailed, getting most people used to acquiescence.
Well
What term should people use to describe those in government that think they know what's best for the general public in all areas of life, and attempt to impose their beliefs on the masses?
the wild west?
I don't want everyone to have guns