i want all drugs legal, but i also want all of them regulated and aggressive, true education on the ones with recreational potential (not some DARE shit or joke health classes taught by insane women or people there to coach football after 2pm) in order to reduce the amount of regulation needed, as if the drugs really do pose health problems they'll fall out of favor quick enough. ... been my position for a long time.
cigs kill many many more ppl indirectly via lung cancer and throat cancer than all the other schedule 1 drugs combined, and those are supposed to be really dangerous if you want to take the DEA's word for it (if they're not dangerous then all those agents are gonna be looking for jobs so they kinda need to keep up the illusion.)
i do not like assigning arbitrary age limits on things, but when it's seriously a life or death matter that you can't just stop so easily since nicotine is the most addictive of all recreational drugs (also one of the most toxic mg for mg), until education can catch up (lowering or even eliminating these age requirements) i think arbitrary age limits are a good thing on rec drug use. for cigs in the U.S. education has mostly caught up, and the concurrent downward trending cig use in the U.S. is causally linked to that.
Plus, your brain is still developing until 25 y/o. for me that's when you're an adult, and most car rental companies agree. so, frankly, even at 21 it's still kind of like selling to kids.
so to try to make this disjointed post more digestible, if the following things were done in the U.S., I'd be more satisfied with the current age limit of 18:
1) Movie industry always has the bad guys or cool guys or powerful guys smoking. I think this makes some people more receptive to the idea of smoking. Cigarettes in movies is advertising and IMO should be banned from movies.
2) If a different route of administration can be found that isn't inherently damaging, maybe like a pill, cause nicotine is what we're really after anyway, not necessarily the tobacco, then that would be good. people who wanna smoke just for
the sake of it can try weed, something they can easily quit (physiologically) if they have a change of heart later in life or due to new info.
3) If they clean up cigarettes by getting rid of all the excess chemicals like arsenic, i would expect cigs would become a lot safer.
If some or all these things were done, i'd be a lot happier with the current 18 y/o requirement, but for now I think 21 is a good move, and makes more sense. Something is gonna have to be done for those already hooked but not yet 21..they'll need to be grandfathered in would be the simplest solution.
the thing about driving a car vs cig smoking is cars facilitate lots of things not just for recreation and not inherently harmful to drive. cigs are only for recreation, so that's why i think driving at 16 is okay but smoking at 18 isn't (although governors set to 55 for drivers under 21 would save a lot of lives as well. I look forward to the day when all cars have breathalyzers in them, nearly eliminating drunk driving. Police would lose their hard on though, and would have to retool towards actually helping people and focusing on white collar crimes just as much as blue collar ones).
And just to be clear, i don't think nicotine itself is dangerous (unless you OD on it) just cigs.
