Mitch McConnell Wants to Raise Smoking, Vaping Age to 21

Mitch McConnell Wants to Raise Smoking, Vaping Age to 21

Oh this will help bring in the young voters! Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wants to introduce a bill to raise the smoking and vaping age to 21.

We obviously need the government to look out for us because education alone hasn’t taught us the harm that comes with smoking cigarettes.

From The New York Times:

Mr. McConnell, the Republican Senate majority leader whose home state, Kentucky, is the nation’s second-largest tobacco producer, said he was motivated by the increasing rate of vaping among teenagers and young adults.

Public health agencies have cracked down on e-cigarette companies and distributors in an effort to curb access to the products.

“For some time, I’ve been hearing from the parents who are seeing an unprecedented spike in vaping among their teenage children,” Mr. McConnell said at a news conference Thursday in Louisville, Ky. “In addition, we all know people who started smoking at a young age and who struggled to quit as adults.”

Yes, we need more laws and hand holding from the government.

I have smoked on and off since I turned 18. When my doctor diagnosed me with rheumatoid arthritis, I had to give up alcohol and took up the smoking habit again for a vice. I know the risks. I know what it does. Yet I choose to do it. You don’t have to lecture me. I get enough from my mother.

You become a legal adult when you’re 18. You receive education throughout school, starting in elementary school, about the risks of smoking. People who pick it up knows the risks unless they have no intelligence.

It is hard to quit. I’ve backed off a little bit.

Reason cited data from 2016 that “cigarette smoking among U.S. adults stood at about 15.5 percent, down from 20.9 percent a decade or so earlier and around 42 percent in the 1960s.”

Vaping has also helped people quit smoking. While it’s not ideal, vaping can keep kids away from cigarettes.

Tobacco companies have come out in support of the measure. I imagine they did because it will not affect them much. More from The New York Times:

Tobacco and vaping companies have gotten on board, too, partly in an apparent effort to distance themselves from accusations that they have deliberately marketed their products to youth to hook a new generation. Altria, Juul and R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company all have said they back raising the minimum age.

“We commend Senator McConnell for announcing this legislation as we strongly support raising the purchasing age for all tobacco products, including vapor products, to 21,” said Kevin Burns, chief executive of Juul. “Tobacco 21 laws fight one of the largest contributors to this problem — sharing by legal-age peers — and they have been shown to dramatically reduce youth usage rates.”

Altria and R. J. Reynolds also praised the senator and noted that they had also supported state Tobacco 21 efforts. David Sutton, an Altria spokesman, said that so far this year eight states had passed such legislation, which brings the number of states with Tobacco 21 laws to 14 as well as the District of Columbia; two of the measures await signing.

As Elizabeth Nolan Brown at Reason said, it makes them look good. But she reminded readers that this will open doors to “black market cigarettes, busts of teens vaping, undercover inspections at local shops.”

Once again, if people under the age of 21 wants a cigarette or to vape, they will find a way.

You can enlist in the military at 18, go fight wars overseas, but yet you cannot smoke tobacco.

It may appear like a little thing to most people, but I don’t take anything lightly that interferes with a consumer’s choice or an individual right.

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