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from the pufff-eeeergh-thas-good-shit dept.
More than 40 states have banned the sale of electronic cigarettes to minors, but Michael Greenwood reports at the Yale School of Medicine that a study indicates that these measures have an unintended and dangerous consequence: increasing adolescents' use of conventional cigarettes. "Conventional cigarette use has been falling somewhat steadily among this age group since the start of the 21st century. This paper shows that bans on e-cigarette sales to minors appear to have slowed this decline by about 70 percent in the states that implemented them," says Abigail Friedman. "In other words, as a result of these bans, more teenagers are using conventional cigarettes than otherwise would have done so." Guided by her findings and the fact that habitual use of conventional cigarettes first spikes at age 16, Friedman suggests that bans on e-cigarette sales may be more effective in reducing teenage smoking if they were limited to those under 16, rather than those under 18.
This middle ground solution may provide a way to reduce teen smoking while the long-term effects of vaping, still largely unknown, are being determined. "Policy makers have been assuming that banning e-cigarette sales to minors will improve public health. This paper's finding, that these bans increase conventional cigarette smoking among teens, suggests that we may need to rethink this conclusion."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 07 2015, @03:27PM
The issue here is that they are ignorant, often willfully, of the long-term damages caused by ingesting such substances while still developing. Legally children do not own their own bodies until they are 18, their parents are responsible for them and must consent to any surgeries, piercings, tattoos, etc; if a kid dies the blame falls solely on the parents and they typically face at least neglect charges. Aside from that, there really are a few things, very few, which must be done "for their own good" - preventing people from ignorantly causing damages to their bodies which will last for the rest of their life while they are too young to be able comprehend the damages they are causing is one of those things. After they're an adult, if they want to blow their brains out or saw off a leg, that's on them, but when they're still 8 they don't have the mental capacity to understand the long-term implications of such an action.