Childish
Well, it appears that Hawaii is the topic of the day.
The anti-smokers have come up with some remarkably daft ideas [which are all apparently “ground-breaking” and of course a “roaring success” even when they fail abysmally to have the desired effect].
The latest is of course Hawaii’s attempt to raise the minimum smoking age to 100.
The new bill, HB 1509, suggests that the smoking age should go up to 30 in 2020, 40 in 2021, 50 in 2022, and 60 in 2023 – until finally, in 2024, people would need to be 100 years old to buy cigarettes.
I have given this a lot of thought – about thirty seconds worth – and can see a bit of a conundrum here. Take the case of some 29 year old who enjoys a fag or ten. Currently that’s not a problem but if the new law comes into force he will suddenly be under-age until his birthday next year. He can then resume his pleasurable little pastime once more but only for a year when he has to stop again because suddenly he’s under-age once more. However, he only has to wait 69 years when he can once more resume.
Weird.
I thought the minimum age for just about anything was to set the age of reason. If you are above the minimum age you are considered to be an adult responsible for your own actions? This presumably means that in 2024 everyone in Hawaii is considered to be a child incapable of rational decisions? You only become an adult at 100?
Weird again.
I really am intrigued to know what they’ll come up with next…. .
I envy you. You manage to be “intrigued”. Me? They disgust me, these busybodies and crazies who try to run everbody’s life according to their own narrow (and outrageous) ideas.
I used to wonder why my parents always said something about the world getting crazier and crazier. Now I’m of an age to say the same thing. Is it just a question of age or a question of the world indeed getting crazier by the second?
The world has reached such a state of craziness that I have ceased to get wound up at any development. Life is too short. Anyway I think we may be approaching peak insanity so I am somewhat interested in what they’ll come up with next.
If only they could put the legal age of so-called health advisors up to 100.
That’s another potential destination off the list of where I plan to spend my millions.
I plan to go there when I reach 100. I’ll buy a pack and sell them singly to 90-year-olds 😉
I plan to go there as soon as the law is introduced. Bring a crate of packs and flog ’em on the black market. I should easily make enough profit to pay for the trip, and then some.
Do these whackos really think that laws like this will stop people smoking? Laws like this will just mean new business opportunities for black marketers and new opportunities for empire builders in law enforcement and corruption.
If they think this is such a brilliant idea, why stop there? Use those guidelines for the sale of alcohol, to prevent the problems of alcoholism, and any product containing sugar or salt to combat obesity or kidney problems. I am sure the electorate will continue to happily vote for those introducing such laws.
This is the new abolitionism, except with tobacco.
As with alcohol outlawed a century ago, you simply create a lucrative black market and forcibly criminalise at least half (or more) the population. That creates all kinds of societal problems and after sufficient time the law gets banned when all the idiots in politics learnt their lesson.