The US officially raises the tobacco buying age to 21
A new law in the United States that prohibits the sale of tobacco products to anyone under the age of 21 is now in effect, according to the US Food and Drug Administration.
Last week, President Donald Trump signed the new minimum age into law as part of a sweeping spending bill. On Friday, the FDA noted on its website that "it is now illegal for a retailer to sell any tobacco product -- including cigarettes, cigars and e-cigarettes -- to anyone under 21. FDA will provide additional details on this issue as they become available."
The increased age restriction for tobacco purchases is one of several provisions outside of the spending measures themselves attached to the broader $1.4 trillion spending agreement.
Also at ABC.
Previously: California to Permit Assisted Suicide Starting June 9th, Could Raise Smoking Age to 21
California's Legal Smoking Age Set to Rise to 21
Tobacco Roundup
U.S. Surgeon General Decries Teenage Vaping
Oregon Becomes the Fifth State to Raise the Tobacco Age Limit to 21
San Francisco Bans E-Cigarette Sales
Related Stories
California Governor Jerry Brown signed the End of Life Option Act in October, permitting medically assisted suicide, but the legislation could not take effect until 90 days after the special legislative session in which it was passed ended. The session ended on March 10th, so the bill is set to go into effect on June 9th. Here are some more details about the Act:
As written, the law requires two doctors to agree, before prescribing the drugs, that a patient has six months or less to live. Patients must be able to swallow the medication themselves and must affirm in writing, 48 hours before taking the medication, that they will do so.
California is the fifth state to permit this option at the end of life. It joins Vermont, Oregon, Washington and Montana.
The California legislature has also raised the age required to purchase tobacco products from 18 to 21. The governor has not yet indicated whether he will sign the legislation. Hawaii previously raised the minimum smoking age to 21 in early January:
A week ago, the California Assembly approved the measure, which — in addition to raising the age limit — regulates electronic cigarettes the same as tobacco products, expands smoke-free areas, increases smoking bans and allows counties to levy higher taxes on cigarettes than the 87-cent per pack state tax. According to NPR member station KQED, the Assembly's vote came a few days after the San Francisco Board of Supervisors increased the age to buy tobacco products to 21.
Late Wednesday, Brown signed the bill raising the age for tobacco use, including vaping, to 21, the Associated Press reports. He also vetoed a bill that would have asked voters to divert tobacco taxes to pay for the health expenses of those with tobacco-related ailments, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Source: NPR
U.S. to Crack Down on Tobacco, Electronic Cigarettes
NBC News and the Providence Journal report that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has published a rule which will classify cigars, chewing tobacco and nicotine-containing fluid for electronic cigarettes as tobacco products. Under the rule, sale of those items to people under 18 years of age is to be prohibited. The electronic parts of electronic cigarettes are not covered by the rule. According to NBC News, the rule "will be open for public comment before it becomes final." The FDA regulates cigarettes and loose tobacco for smoking.
[Continues...]
The U.S. surgeon general has warned against surging e-cigarette use among teenagers, calling it a "major public health concern" in a new report:
The U.S. surgeon general is calling e-cigarettes an emerging public health threat to the nation's youth. In a report being released Thursday, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy acknowledged a need for more research into the health effects of "vaping," but said e-cigarettes aren't harmless and too many teens are using them. "My concern is e-cigarettes have the potential to create a whole new generation of kids who are addicted to nicotine," Murthy told The Associated Press. "If that leads to the use of other tobacco-related products, then we are going to be moving backward instead of forward."
[...] Federal figures show that last year, 16 percent of high school students reported at least some use of e-cigarettes - even some who say they've never smoked a conventional cigarette. While not all contain nicotine, Murthy's report says e-cigarettes are the most commonly used tobacco-related product among youth. Nicotine is bad for a developing brain no matter how it's exposed, Murthy said. "Your kids are not an experiment," he says in a public service announcement being released with the report.
It's already illegal to sell e-cigarettes to minors. Earlier this year, the Food and Drug Administration issued new rules that, for the first time, will require makers of nicotine-emitting devices to begin submitting their ingredients for regulators to review.
Also at USA Today, NYT, The Hill, and The Washington Post.
Oregon has joined California, Hawaii, Maine, and New Jersey in raising the minimum age limit for purchasing tobacco and related products to 21:
Oregon is raising the minimum age for buying tobacco and e-cigarettes in the state to 21, bringing its regulations into line with sales of marijuana products.
The new law, signed by Governor Kate Brown on Wednesday and taking effect on Jan. 1, bans under-21s from buying tobacco products and vaping devices, and makes vendors liable for fines for under-age sales.
The current age limit in the state is 18.
Previously: California's Legal Smoking Age Set to Rise to 21
Submitted via IRC for Bytram
San Francisco bans e-cigarette sales
San Francisco has become the first US city to ban e-cigarette sales until their health effects are clearer. Officials on Tuesday voted to ban stores selling the vaporisers and made it illegal for online retailers to deliver to addresses in the city.
The California city is home to Juul Labs, the most popular e-cigarette producer in the US. Juul said the move would drive smokers back to cigarettes and "create a thriving black market".
San Francisco's mayor, London Breed, has 10 days to sign off the legislation, but has indicated that she would. The law would begin to be enforced seven months from that date, although there have been reports firms could mount a legal challenge.
Anti-vaping activists say firms deliberately target young people by offering flavoured products. Critics say that not only is more scientific investigation into the health impact needed, vaping can encourage young people to switch to cigarettes.
Also at CNET.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 29 2019, @03:25AM (129 children)
Would you fuckers make your minds up about when someone is an adult already? Drive a couple tons of steel around way too fast at 16, vote and get sent to war at 18, drink and smoke at 21, and who the fuck knows for anything sex-related. How about you just set a legal age for adulthood and recognize that you need to stay the fuck out of the lives of adults, regardless of how new they are to adulthood?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Touché) by black6host on Sunday December 29 2019, @03:30AM (4 children)
Did you mean to say this: "How about you just set a legal age for adulthood and recognize that you need to stay the fuck off my lawn!!!!!"
I kid... :)
(Score: 4, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 29 2019, @03:34AM (3 children)
Nah, I'm moving in a couple months, so I don't mind if they walk on this lawn.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by EETech1 on Sunday December 29 2019, @11:58AM (2 children)
My lawn is a half frozen, muddy, and covered in leaves!
Better bring your boots!
Now that it snows before the leaves fall, then we get a couple weeks of freezing rain, then more snow, now more rain again...
Quit climate changing my lawn!
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday December 29 2019, @10:36PM (1 child)
73 comments and none are about actually smoking. Smoking is easy to do, you and some buddies scoop a few bucks together and have a bum buy you a pack and offer him some free smokes or an extra few dollars as a premium. And this is only if you don't have a cool older sibling who will buy you some, or a smoking parent who buys cartons at a time that you can't pick from piecewise. Or if you want to vape, drag on one that's lying around the house or use the same methods described above to get a vape.
It's only a minor pain in the ass to those who want to smoke regardless of age.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 29 2019, @11:06PM
Besides, smoking will not impair your thinking. Could even be healthier by controlling the appetite and reducing obesity.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 29 2019, @03:34AM (75 children)
Until he is an adult, what am I supposed to do about my 16-year-old son? He sets a bad example for younger siblings, with lots of sloth and disrespect, but I have no effective way to punish him. I can't kick him out and he knows it. I probably wouldn't even have to kick him out if I could do so, because then he'd fear it enough to shape up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 29 2019, @03:45AM
Drug him, ADD drugs are easy to get prescribed to lazy slothful kids.
Start with one adderall then ask him to do housework for more ;)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 29 2019, @03:45AM (35 children)
Personally, I'd say sixteen at the latest with anyone wanting to take on the responsibilities of an adult at any time in their teens able to make that decision and live with it.
I worked after school and weekends and bought my own car at sixteen. Got my GED, dropped out of school, got a decent paying job moving pianos, and got my own place at barely seventeen. Joined the Army at eighteen. My dad worked full time and had his own apartment at thirteen. We're infantilizing the shit out of people who should be capable of taking responsibility for their own choices. Fuck, we're even calling college students "kids" now. There's some motherfuckers out there that desperately need to learn the meanings of the words "child", "adolescent", and "adult".
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by canopic jug on Sunday December 29 2019, @04:04AM (3 children)
Conversely if they aren't mature enough to hold their beer, they're not mature enough to hold a ballot deciding over the fate of others either.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 29 2019, @11:27AM (2 children)
Holding your beer is a function of experience and not wanting to be a dumbass in public not age. Better to get the stupid out of the way all at once if you really must.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Sunday December 29 2019, @11:49AM (1 child)
Yes, age is getting used as a surrogate for experience and maturity. These days it does not necessarily mean either. I can't think of any work-arounds for that which can't get gamed worse than the current situation though.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 29 2019, @03:13PM
The workaround is what we started with, letting those doing moronic things reap the consequences.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Funny) by driverless on Sunday December 29 2019, @04:39AM (7 children)
I graduated school, learned to play music by ear, made a few recordings, ran into a bit of trouble with crowds at some of my performances going a bit wild, joined the army at 23 and served in Germany, came back to the US to continue my music career with some roles in movies, got Colonel Parker to be my manager, and have never looked back. Thangyouverymuuuch!
(Score: 4, Informative) by RS3 on Sunday December 29 2019, @04:47AM (3 children)
For anyone who didn't get it, that's Elvis Presley's story.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 29 2019, @06:37AM
driverless --> elvis derrs
seems legit.
(Score: 3, Informative) by MostCynical on Sunday December 29 2019, @07:09AM
Left out the 14yo..
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 29 2019, @05:34PM
I thought he left the building?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @04:26AM (2 children)
Then died in a Las Vegas toilet stall with a stomach full of pills.... epic.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by driverless on Monday December 30 2019, @04:33AM
'mmm not dead baby, jus' restin'.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 30 2019, @05:02AM
The can in question was in his home in Graceland, Memphis, Tennessee.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Sunday December 29 2019, @05:59PM (21 children)
Should be is quite different from is be.
Good for you and your dad - my grandfather dropped out of school in the 6th grade, worked his way into the TVA and worked as a mechanic in the Army Air Corps in WWII. On the other hand, my younger brother has been a fucking train wreck and still struggles to manage his own affairs at age 45, and there is a fairly strong drug culture component of the train wreck years story.
Common theme: the young success stories tend to make "good choices" for themselves, while the train wrecks don't. The nanny state wants to reduce the number of train wrecks, so they attempt to legislate "good choices" onto the youth of the nation hoping to improve overall outcomes. Mix in corporate greed, political reality, etc. and you've got the mess we live in today.
I do firmly believe that the arbitrary age limits set out in laws are inadequate approximations - many younger people are already capable of X while many older people aren't, but anything like a competency exam is usually met with cries of discrimination (often well founded...)
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 29 2019, @08:29PM (3 children)
Much of our audience can't imagine those days. It needs to be said that 100 years ago, an 8th grade education was the norm. Most communities offered 8 years of schooling for everyone, and only serious students stayed longer. The best student of a generation might be sent off to college, to become the next generation's teacher. And, a 2-year bachelor degree actually meant something, as opposed to PhD's today who can't find a job.
On the other hand, an 8th grade final exam was something of an accomplishment. Maybe I can find one to share . . .
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/1912-eighth-grade-exam_n_3744163 [huffpost.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 29 2019, @09:10PM (2 children)
I think I could have answered most of those when I had an eighth grade education (don't know what a cord is though). At least in the 80s if you paid attention, public schools could disseminate a decent education.
Problem was that failure to keep up wasn't punished. Whether you learned because you wanted to be a functioning adult ASAP, or just didn't give a fuck, everyone was dragged along in the system until ejected at the end of 12th grade. Because that is the purpose of public school, to babysit the kids so parents could work.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday December 31 2019, @05:48PM
With the advent of electricity and electric heating, your average person doesn't need to know how much wood is in a cord of wood.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cord_(unit) [wikipedia.org]
It's a lot bigger than I would have figured, but I was never curious enough to look it up.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 02 2020, @08:05AM
It was still a lousy top-down, authoritarian, prussia-based abomination. Mindless rote memorization - as opposed to a high-level understanding of the material - was almost all that was required. There were no good old days for the US school system.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 29 2019, @08:34PM (16 children)
Still missing the point. If someone is willing to accept the consequences of making adult choices for themselves, it's nobody else's obligation or right to stop them. People have an absolute right to be wrong.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @02:44AM (15 children)
Yep. If someone is capable of making adult choices for themselves without turning themselves into a basket case requiring high levels of taxpayer funded support, either in prison, court ordered rehab, welfare, foodstamps, etc. THEN they have an absolute right to be wrong.
You want to ride a motorcycle with no helmet? Fine, I'm all for that, as long as your hospital bill from the crash isn't coming out of my insurance payments. I still don't wear bicycle helmets myself because I think that particular nanny-state law is mostly counter-productive: how about riding the bike responsibly enough to not head-plant yourself instead? 40,000+ miles and probably 100 crashes to-date in my personal experience, never once lost control in a way that sent my head to the pavement. Maybe I've just been lucky, maybe it will happen some day and I can retire on everybody else's dime instead of working until I'm 74, certainly happened to my train-wreck of a brother when he was 9, but we're pretty sure that had little or nothing to do with his ongoing challenges.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by legont on Monday December 30 2019, @04:31AM (7 children)
I am not using helmet because it sends a wrong message, namely that bicycling is dangerous. It is dangerous all right, but, I believe, not bicycling is more so (diabetes, overweight, lack of crash training and so on). Ideally, a kid should have bike as the first choice of transportation always. Asking to always have a helmet with her is unrealistic.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @04:48AM (6 children)
In sentiment and principle I agree, but as for unrealistic? Around here, they give bike helmets away in public school, you could easily just leave it hanging on the handlebars and who's going to steal a crappy free bike helmet?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by legont on Monday December 30 2019, @06:55AM (5 children)
Bike share is easy; helmet share is not. One has to carry helmet all the time for bikes to be really convenient.
Besides, "crappy free bike helmet" does not work. Helmets that do work actually have an expiration dates of 3-5 years.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @12:21PM (4 children)
The ones they give away around here are indistinguishable from the ones you buy in the fancy bike shops, except for a recognizable color scheme and a little "school free bike helmet program" logo on them. Through elementary school you can get a couple of them, I'm not sure about middle school. Point being: they're not really expensive to provide when you provide them like that. Sure, a specialty bike shop might charge $30 for a helmet you can buy in WalMart for $9.99, but if they are being mass produced and delivered to school children for free the actual cost drops well below $5 each, and if they really do prevent injury, $1 per year per kid is damn cheap insurance.
Now, if you're fortunate enough to live in bike-share country... that's foreign territory to me. Around here we just buy 'em cheap at yard sales, like less than $20 for a decent condition kid's bike. Even going concern for-profit outlets like pawn shops and thrift stores charge less than $50 for a decent 12-speed suspension bike with disc brakes. Bike theft of bottom-end bikes just isn't the concern here and now the way it was in the 1970s.
Meanwhile, specialty bike shops selling shiny new stuff that's otherwise not much better start around $700 and go up from there for "real quality" bicycles. It's one of the painfully clear illustrations of the modern wealth-gap.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by legont on Monday December 30 2019, @09:09PM (3 children)
What I was trying to say is that a helmet have to be good, tightly tied, and fresh to be able to stop serious head injury. An old cheap helmet just handing on the head does not protect the head. In fact it offers false safety - provokes risky behavior while providing very little protection benefit.
I realize that bike helmet manufactures screw their customers. However, one still can find out some truth by researching motorcycle helmets. They are DOT certified and that certification has a helmet age limit. The reason is that light helmet' filling loses it's protective properties with time.
I believe that bad helmet is worse than no helmet and since almost nobody has good helmet, no helmet is always a better option; plus the "danger" message part which makes children fat and sick.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @09:55PM (2 children)
Well, like I said, the schools are giving out brand new ones, indistinguishable from the best available, for free.
Now, you're talking about all helmets, which I actually agree with.
There's a real difference between hitting the pavement at 12 mph and 60 mph, and you wouldn't want your neck to try to support a motorcycle helmet while riding a bicycle.
And, when I say "crappy school helmet" I'm not talking about one that has been crash-used multiple times. This is America, we throw away brand new shit just because it's out of style. Out of style doesn't mean non-functional.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday December 31 2019, @12:08AM (1 child)
Just so we are on the same page, any modern helmet - and let me use ski helmet as another example - that was dropped on the floor should be replaced or it is useless in a crash.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday December 31 2019, @02:51AM
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 30 2019, @04:53PM (6 children)
You're the one saying the taxpayers should support fools, not I.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @06:56PM (5 children)
I'm the one observing that taxpayers do support fools, as long as that's the case let's not enable the fools to put themselves on disability.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 30 2019, @09:43PM (4 children)
That's doubling down on idiocy. If you want less of something (foolishness in this case) you stop subsidizing it, you don't throw good money after bad.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @10:25PM (3 children)
The law in question (the one in the real world) isn't throwing money anywhere - it's restricting youth access to addictive chemicals and their delivery systems. Kind of like government bans on theft and murder, I'm behind this one for the tiny cost that it will incur - age limits already existed, this is moving the number.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 31 2019, @04:38AM (2 children)
You're confusing what you're talking about. I said let people make mistakes and learn from them, you said but it'd cost money, I said not if you don't subsidize stupid, you lost track and started over.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday December 31 2019, @05:47AM (1 child)
I've always held the belief that insurance is subsidizing stupid (and willfully reckless / destructive). Social insurance is no different, but all kinds of insurance are - in their best forms - spreading risk and reducing overall cost burden by not throwing those in need of making a claim under the bus from which it is much more expensive to extract oneself.
Letting people "learn" by trying nicotine for a few months, then spending decades trying to kick the habit doesn't seem like a great strategy.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 31 2019, @06:37AM
That's all fine and good when it's a voluntary system. When it's done at gunpoint (And don't say that's hyperbole. It's not. Not even a little bit. Fail to pay your taxes and see if men with guns don't show up.) that's another matter entirely.
Of parenting? Probably not. The government has no business saying what its citizens can put in their bodies though. Doesn't matter if they're five or seventy-five, that's way overstepping their authority.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 29 2019, @08:13PM
Yeah you did absolutely none of that.
(Score: 0, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 29 2019, @03:54AM (37 children)
Sorry, didn't answer your question. Beat his ass. If you're physically incapable, dump him on the state; they're outstanding at making lazy assholes the best lazy assholes they can be.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by https on Sunday December 29 2019, @03:24PM (10 children)
So you're openly advocating child abuse now, using your staff account.
You need to take a long look in the mirror and understand that you are a) seriously fucked in the head, and b) a hazard to society. I don't know how you got there, but you ain't moving and that decision is on you.
martyb, i've mentioned previously the obstacle to making me a paying subscriber...
Offended and laughing about it.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday December 29 2019, @03:38PM
Some people aren't fit to be parents. Luckily this one at least recognizes that and refrains from procreation.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 29 2019, @06:03PM (5 children)
Get your sanctimonious ass off of your high pony. "Staff account"? Everybody volunteers their spare time here. As a commenter, he is as free as all of us to give his opinion.
Do feel free to become a paying subscriber at your own site, where everybody shares your value system.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 29 2019, @07:11PM (4 children)
It is not sanctimonious, society has pretty universally condemned child abuse. You don't need physical abuse to set boundaries and provide discipline.
One of the bigger problems our society has is the commitment to tolerance and acceptance of people. This has led to the racists and bigots getting outraged that people don't want them around.
Volunteer or not doesn't matter, buzzy is still in a leadership position on the site and is frequently very vocal about his opinions. I think the idea that he have separate accounts for personal and leadership uses is not asking too much. Having him removed from volunteering? I can see that given his deliberate trolling and advocating child abuse. Not something I'd want my organization associated with.
So now the most depraved among us are lauded, told they have a safe space. I'm fine with the free speech dedication of this site, but a good chunk of the user base have moved from "free speech advocate" to "advocate of terrible things." Terrible people are being encouraged instead of tolerated.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 29 2019, @07:24PM (1 child)
Does that make your fingers just *itch* to have them silenced? Are you disappointed that they can't be threatened with the sack when you tell on them? Dismayed that we are still so small that deplatforming would not yield enough of a virtue signalling gain to our providers?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 30 2019, @12:45AM
Thanks for highlighting the problem. You're so anxious to be a victim you can't see reality. Must be all that projection, YOU want to silence your critics and other people you deem subhuman so you naturally expect that is what others want for you.
Get lost little bigot.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @04:33AM
Depends on your society - white upper middle class US society? Yes. Asian, Latin, Black, poor immigrants? Not so much.
Ronnie Chieng: Asian Comedian Destroys America - now streaming on Netflix, recommended as not a total waste of your time.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 02 2020, @08:09AM
Spanking has not been banned in many places, so no. Also, psychological child abuse is still very much allowed.
Society doesn't actually care about children as much as some seem to think. It gives the appearance of caring, sure, but its actions say the opposite.
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 29 2019, @08:35PM
You think corporal punishment is child abuse? You are why we have thirty year old children living at home.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 30 2019, @09:38AM (1 child)
Often enough, an ass whipping is EXACTLY what a kid needs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 02 2020, @08:11AM
An ass whooping is exactly what you need. Oh, wait, that would be assault. But, if use physical violence against someone under 18 years of age, then it's okay.
(Score: 4, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Sunday December 29 2019, @06:09PM (25 children)
I've got a "special" case with autism - they can't test him so he comes out below 70IQ, but in certain (limited) ways he's manipulating PhD behaviorists to get what he wants... Got into a situation with him one night aged ~5, in a B&B where he wanted to get out of bed and go roam around the 100 acre farm and surrounding woods in the dark. Wrestled him back into bed 10 times, verbally instructed him to stay, etc. Always within 3-5 minutes he'd be up again running for the stairs. Gave him his first proper paddling and he immediately tucked in and stayed in bed until morning. Next night, he starts up again, but this time he's grabbing my hand spanking his own butt with it - spankings weren't really effective on him ever again.
The state employs too many people who care too little to do most "hardcase care" jobs. Some of them still use beatings, etc. to get their point across. My point to you is: if you're still using physical beatings to communicate with your kids when they are getting big and strong enough that you're becoming physically incapable of beating them... you have effectively trained your child, for life, to use physical violence to communicate. Congratulations: that makes you an official part of the problem, potentially extending for generations beyond your death.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Sunday December 29 2019, @07:37PM (7 children)
Bless you for your effort and attitude and for trying to learn and do your best. I don't know if I could deal with it, nor what I would do in your situation.
Too lazy to look it up, but I'm pretty sure I remember some research coming out of Sweden or somewhere in Europe concluding that watching TV ages 0-2 caused autism and other disorders. I was eating dirt at that age. Or playing with wires or pretty much anything but TV.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @02:28AM (6 children)
There's published research from all over, with all kinds of wild speculation about what "causes autism" ranging from refrigerator mothers through industrial pollution, organophosphate fertilizer/pesticides, multifactor genetics, mercury, etc. and none of it seems to be able to explain the recent surge in prevalence and severity. Awareness does explain a part of the surge, but not anywhere near all of it.
I was raised on TV (babysitter from 2 months of age through kindergarten - TV 8 hours+ per day) and "look how great I turned out..."
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday December 30 2019, @03:23AM (5 children)
Yeah, all good points, except maybe that last one. Just kidding! Yeah, I think that TV study went away because it wasn't definitive nor causative.
And don't forget the anti-vaxers- vaccines cause autism, right?
Something's causing it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @04:21AM (4 children)
Well, in our house we have 2, one severe, one hyper-extreme-severe. The hyper-extreme one had a serious developmental regression around 23 months old, and I might blame that one on pesticides used in our rental house, or general (Houston) environmental toxin loads, or just a genetic "failure to prune" - his headsize to body size ratio was literally off the charts, well beyond 99%. However, he also had a really bad reaction to a Hep-A vaccine around 30 months of age - unbelievable fever spike 8 hours post vaccination, no seizures, but treatment in the ER with ice bath, tylenol and ibuprofen managed to bring it down to ~102 after a couple of hours. This was around 2004, so mom dove in on the anti-vax thing at that point and I wasn't going to object. He eats plenty of dirt and has been (other than the occasional bout of Rotavirus) super healthy since. Our less extreme case was about a year old when we went off the vaccination schedule, still do tetanus but otherwise we have laid off. Less vaccines, less severe autism? The correlation holds for our N of 2. Do I believe the vaccines "caused" our kids autism? No - but, I do believe that they weren't helping reduce the severity of it and from our perspective, that's a very important consideration.
The short answer is: modern life. And, if you like, less severe autism might be considered a contributing factor to the modern life that's causing more severe autism. Our earliest conversation about the kids' autism was with a pediatrician in Nassau Bay, literally across from the front gate of Space Center Houston. She was Indian and had two observations: 1) oh, don't worry, just get him a good wife and he'll be fine, and 2) pointing out the window at NASA, most of the guys over there have autism (true enough, though not severe like our kids), they do fine. We didn't feel comforted at all by her platitudes, shortly thereafter mom discovered Gluten Free (pretty obscure in 2004) and it did make a big positive difference in our day to day lives with the kids - not a cure at all, but a major improvement, and a major setback when the diet would get broken. Couple the clear observable results of Gluten Free in our lives with the swirl of doubt and controversy around 2004 and the vaccines were just a no-go for our kids.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday December 30 2019, @05:12AM (3 children)
This is fascinating, thanks.
I know people who are into a wide variety of nutrition, natural foods, holistic, read up on "leaky gut syndrome", on and on. I know I eat a bit too much sugar and sometimes develop symptoms of candida overgrowth. Bacteria can create all kinds of nasty stuff- some of which is obviously poison, but some are subtle. I think some people are more sensitive to the effects of some things, especially some allergens. But there may be many subtle sensitivities we really don't understand yet. Just to be clear, I'm not pro-vax nor anti-vax. No question some people have horrible reactions to vaccines. Imagine someday they might test for allergic reaction before full dose. But even then a person could develop severe non-allergic reactions. Makes me want to look 100 years into the future- will mankind fully understand all of our chemistry?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @12:02PM (2 children)
This is what I think most people fail to grasp about diet and health - your gut is a dynamic environment, what "works" in one state can be totally bad for you in another. It's not "one simple trick" that works for all people all the time, it's an ongoing and usually dynamic relationship between your body, your colony of microbes, and the food you eat.
Our older son used to be VERY sensitive to even the smallest amounts of gluten, today we can get away with small "infractions" as mom calls them and he doesn't seem to suffer, but just ignoring it and eating "normal" will still bring him down. The other one doesn't seem affected one way or the other by gluten or gluten free. Mom and I are old enough that we feel inflammation in the joints and similar things if we eat too much gluten bearing foods, I have a knee that literally starts making noise while descending stairs when my inflammation is up - cut the gluten completely for a couple of weeks and it stops doing that, this has been true for the past 15+ years now.
Yeah, the thing I hate most about it is the so-called vaccine injury fund which (from my perspective) is a sham of a justification for how safe they are. I think one autism case has managed to successfully sue for damages, but you have to have such unreasonable levels of resources to successfully pursue a case and proof of injury by the vaccine which you personally collect, because the establishment sure as hell won't collect it for you, that it really heavily skews the results in the fund's favor. Do vaccines give everybody Autism? clearly not. Are vaccines 100% responsible for the recent (last 30 years) upturn in Autism cases? I think also, clearly not. However, are vaccines partly responsible for the severity of symptoms in some significant fraction of the 175 new Autism cases diagnosed in the US every day? I don't know, but my gut says yes, and being personally responsible for 2 of those cases the apparent cost/benefit ratio was too high for us to continue taking chances of another fever of 108.
Maybe, but the cynic in me says that they need to keep up this unified front of "vaccines cause no harm" so any research into things like allergy prediction are going to have serious funding problems. If they have even partial success with that kind of research it could trigger massive liabilities in the vaccine injury fund by providing supporting evidence for potentially millions of cases (roughly 20 years per million ASD diagnoses in the US).
I think it's possible, but I'm not sure I'd consider that an improvement in quality of life, at least not in the early years, having to run constant chemical analyses on your body to tailor your diet/medication regime just to stay reasonably healthy. Again, if the conspiracy theorist nutjobs are right (and once in a while even a totally random nutjob is correct) and "big agriculture" has genetically/chemically engineered our wheat supply into something that's harmful to 2+% of the population, that's going to be a brouhaha that will make the lead in gasoline fiasco look tame.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday December 30 2019, @02:26PM (1 child)
You're quite sage and rational.
Two of my cynically favorite phrases, which are quite interrelated: "sweeping generalization" (seems to be proliferating with the increased usage of the 'net) and "popular misconception".
Not a doctor (regrettably) nor expert, but AFAIK an allergic reaction test is a fairly simple inexpensive thing, generally done by putting a tiny sample of the substance on the skin, covering it, and checking for reaction for a day or so. Again, not expert, I just know people who have had it done.
Absolutely agree re: food / gut biology. It's absolute science. Trouble is, someone gets wind of some of it and advertises in those absurd printings like "national inquirer" and then many people glom onto it, and others overly shun it. And as you mentioned, what works well for one person may not at all for another.
I've often thought about cravings- it's possible your body knows what you need. Occasionally real medical diagnosis involves learning the patient's cravings- some of which can be harmful of course- depends on the substance.
My thinking in terms of future medicine, it should be fairly simple to do chemical element testing, coupled with gene understanding, and figure out who is particularly sensitive to what. I envision a pill, similar to a "pillcam" that would do chemical analysis. I have much more to write but no time... Generally I think there's not anywhere near enough diagnostic testing done. And it all needs to become much less expensive. Right now there's no incentive to reduce costs and increase efficiency of diagnostic testing, but again, no time...
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @03:54PM
I believe in Darwin, and I believe that _most_ cravings are beneficial to the craver, or at least their net capacity to procreate... however, I also believe in parasitic control of hosts, and that many cravings are more beneficial to the gut microbes than they are to the host.
Generally, I agree, but after three decades in the medical device industry I can somewhat authoritatively inform you: these things are driven by market forces. Lower cost anything is difficult to develop because that lower cost has to couple with enough market expansion to make the net change a positive impact to overall profits, otherwise: there are higher priority projects out there that will make a bigger net positive impact to overall profits and in a world of limited resources: CAGR is king.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 29 2019, @08:41PM (16 children)
Damn, sorry to hear that. And you're absolutely right that uncommon cases can require uncommon treatment.
As for corporal punishment in general cases, it's meant to be used as punctuation to the ass chewing that precedes it. By itself it's not anywhere near as effective but combined it indisputably sticks the lesson home more effectively. Yes, even on teenagers.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @02:33AM (15 children)
It's like the damn Dr. Phil show where he told moms how to deal with difficult eaters: "you're the adult, you're in control, just wait - they'll get hungry enough they'll eventually eat what you give them." Yeah, great advice Dr. Phil, for 98% of your viewing audience. For the other SEVENTY SIX THOUSAND mothers out there watching your show and dealing with actual hard-case eating problems, you're telling them to malnourish their kids into severe health problems and possibly death.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday December 30 2019, @03:40AM (7 children)
Wait, you mean there are people who take Dr. Phil seriously?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @04:23AM (6 children)
Yeah, unfortunately the proportion of his viewing audience that takes him seriously is really high as compared to the general population and higher still as compared to relatively educated, informed people.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday December 30 2019, @05:16AM (5 children)
Sadly it's one of the things in life that naturally follow- people dumb enough to watch stuff like that are dumb enough to follow the advice. The few minutes I've seen of Dr. Phil show were purely for entertainment spectacle. Hard to understand that anyone takes it seriously. Hey Dr. Phil, how's that working for you?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @12:09PM (4 children)
There's the problem. He's folksy, he spouts easy to remember simple to understand crap that does work for most people, but he's got a viewing audience of millions. Most of those millions go around echoing his simple advice that "worked great for them," not understanding that tens, sometimes hundreds of thousands of people are hurt, instead of helped, by that same simple advice.
It's not even a problem of national scale, in his studio audience of a couple hundred there will be some people who fall outside the simple folksy box, and generally speaking, they're the ones who "need" real help the most. But serving everyone in the room doesn't fit the mold of a simple folksy high viewership high revenue advice show.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by RS3 on Monday December 30 2019, @02:11PM (3 children)
And remember, he was endorsed and set up by the big "O". You get a car! And you get a car! And you get horrible advice that you'll take as you crash and burn!
(Score: 3, Funny) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @03:44PM (2 children)
The Oprah effect is a social-economic phenomenon that you can invest on and make excellent returns - so many lemmings following her lead, ready to be fleeced as they fall off the cliff.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday December 30 2019, @06:25PM (1 child)
They knew "fleece" was involved; they confused it with the Golden Fleece.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @07:12PM
The thing about Oprah, she may give away cars, her viewers may have cars, but what they don't realize is that Oprah can afford helicopters, so when they drive their cars off the cliff following her, they're not in for the same soft landing she's getting.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 30 2019, @04:56PM (6 children)
Good advice does not become bad advice just because there is an extreme minority for whom it is not the way to go.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @07:01PM (5 children)
If that extreme minority numbers in the hundreds, or even tens of thousands, they deserve consideration.
No matter how normal you think you are, you're in an extreme minority in lots of dimensions - everybody is.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 30 2019, @09:45PM (4 children)
If you're actually in that minority by all means use different advice. Most people aren't.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @10:29PM (3 children)
Start with the street you live on, in your town a very small minority of people live on your street.
Now, how about the company you work for? No matter how big, it's a small minority of employees in the jurisdiction it operates in.
Got any diseases that need treating? Most of those are "tiny minority" affairs too.
When we stop caring about minorities, we stop caring about everybody - if you're too obtuse to see how that includes you, oh well - enjoy it when you get singled out for a kick in the 'nads and nobody steps up for your "tiny minority."
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 31 2019, @04:44AM (2 children)
That you're in some kind of minority is not in question. That you're in a particular one is what matters for specific issues.
And, yeah, I'm fine with not taking care of minorities. I don't want the government taking care of anyone, aside from national defense, providing courts of law, keeping Georgia from putting tariffs on Florida, and other legitimate functions of government. Making sure you're comfortable and happy from cradle to grave is not one of those functions. That's entirely your own responsibility.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday December 31 2019, @05:55AM (1 child)
It's not about comfortable and happy, it's about reasonably healthy and low cost to maintain regardless of who's footing the bill.
Let people hit rock bottom and (in today's society) you'll be paying for their rehab until they're on their feet again, which in some (not insignificant) number of cases is until they die. If you're o.k. with letting people die from bad choices like having parents who worked for an industry that lays them off after 20 years in the mill and renders them unemployable with the other 10,000 people they cut loose at the same time... that's a different society than the one I live in.
Preventing people from hitting rock bottom in the first place is far cheaper overall.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 31 2019, @06:48AM
You keep claiming this. I keep saying we shouldn't be paying for their rehab either.
Have you seen Idiocracy? Is that something you actually want to see in real life? Because we're headed for exactly that. If you subsidize something you get more of it, the "why" is completely irrelevant. We've been subsidizing stupidity, profligacy, and laziness for a longass time now. And we've got epic shitloads more of it to show for doing so. That's going to continue getting worse and worse until we stop paying people for making idiotic life choices. There is no other way to correct the problem because we're actively causing it every day.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 29 2019, @03:40AM (6 children)
We were made up that 21 was the age of majority until the 1960s. Then young people got politically active and ages were lowered to 18, and somehow even a constitutional amendment got passed giving 18 year olds the right to vote.
Then young people got complacent, and their rights are being removed again.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 29 2019, @03:51AM (4 children)
And before that it wasn't uncommon to see people married and living on their own in their mid-teens. I expect by the time I'm too old to go fishing they'll have raised the driving age to twenty-five and voting/drinking/etc... ages to thirty or more. I mean, if college students are still kids, they obviously don't need to be drinking and fucking.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 30 2019, @12:40AM (3 children)
Then we wont be able to bang women in their 20s...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 30 2019, @04:57PM (2 children)
Run for office as a Democrat. Problem solved.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 31 2019, @04:03AM (1 child)
Still better than the pedo republicans
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 31 2019, @04:45AM
Learn to troll. Repeating mine isn't even gradeschool level of skill.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday January 02 2020, @04:31PM
They mention this in the lede of the Wiki article on the drinking age. [wikipedia.org]
So yeah...this mess brings a few questions to my mind:
1) Why did they decide to lower the voting age from 21 to 18? (Let me guess...this is the inverse of the Republicans doing their best to disenfranchise people who would vote against them...the Dems controlled the legislature at the moment, and wanted to give themselves more voters?)
2) If "several states" were already voluntarily raising the drinking age, why did the feds need to interfere? (Nobody seems to actually believe anything of any importance should be handled at the state level anymore. And feds are by nature meddlesome?)
3) After the War on Drugs going so marvelously so far, why do they think interfering with tobacco further will work? (see also Prohibition)
If the government is going to keep running lotteries, I don't think they have a leg to stand on telling us how to (not) enjoy our drugs and tobacco. You can't legislate telling people to stop hurting themselves.
Hurt me so good
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Sunday December 29 2019, @03:57AM (33 children)
It really is more of a fuzzy line than a sharp number of orbits around the sun from vaginal extraction to fully formed being capable of non self-injurious decision making.
In the US nobody has been compulsory "sent to war" for ~50 years now, but it is pretty fucking ridiculous that they can deploy you for two tours in live fire but you're not allowed to drink or smoke. On the other hand, heavy use of nicotine or alcohol in the 18-21 age range is really not something that most people should be trusted to do... it's in that fuzzy range where it might be o.k. with responsible direction (like the 15 year old learner's permit where you have to have an 18+ year old licensed driver in the car with you), but turn a bunch of 18 year old jackasses loose with unrestricted access to alcohol and even nicotine all the time and it can have really bad consequences reaching far into their futures, if they don't end up killing themselves.
They raised the drinking age from 18-21 when I was 17, and the rationale was primarily to get it out of the high schools and early college years. If the laws could be crafted as such, I think it would be more appropriate to allow limited alcohol consumption even at lower ages but only with the responsible supervision of person(s) over 25 years of age, said persons to be responsible for the actions and safety of the younger drinkers - with general guidelines that children below the age of 18 or so shouldn't be getting shitfaced, ever, and those aged 18-24 should not be imbibing to the point of alcohol poisoning nor endangering themselves or others while intoxicated. Maybe not a practical law to enforce, but that's more or less how I perceive German society to handle the situation.
As for "vaping is harmless" - not really with the nicotine delivered in modern vaping systems. The neuroscience is pretty basic: lifelong addiction is grown into the still developing brains of nicotine users in the 12-24 year old age bracket - and distinguishing between nicotine vaping liquid and non-nicotine liquid is apparently beyond the capacity of most high school kids.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by RS3 on Sunday December 29 2019, @04:50AM (4 children)
And the fact is that numerical age is not necessarily a determinant of maturity or rational decision-making.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 29 2019, @05:38AM (1 child)
This ^^.
I was driving a stick shift car (off the road) at age five and could have easily driven (with reasonable safely) in the light traffic around our neighborhood a few years later. But I certainly wasn't ready for other aspects of adulthood at that early age.
The whole idea of using fixed ages is pretty messed up, each instance is unique and when there are problems it might be best to let the court system decide if the kid involved should be tried (or protected) as a minor or as an adult. In many serious cases it seems like this is done anyway. Perhaps we could have tests that need to be passed before any kid is allowed to engage in adult activities--conceptually like the driving test (but in USA the driving test is a bad example because it's so easy).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 29 2019, @08:57AM
Easy for you. According to my friend that worked at the DOT in my state, the fail rate was surprisingly high. Something like 15% of people failed the written test and an additional 5% failed the driver's test. And that doesn't count the people who couldn't take the drivers test because their car failed the safety inspection. The worst offenders, according to him, were the hotshots in suits that would show up to get reinstated after their OWI and then fail miserably because they don't know basic things like always having to stop for school buses with their lights on, not to pass on the right, and what a double yellow painted lane divider means.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 29 2019, @05:40PM (1 child)
Donald J Trump is 73. QED.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday December 29 2019, @06:11PM
Some people never do grow up.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 29 2019, @11:34AM (27 children)
See, you're still thinking there need to be laws mandating how children are raised. That's what parents are for. You can't make up for shitty parenting with even shittier legislation.
After they're out on their own they're adults and laws deciding what's wise or unwise for them are every bit as puritanical and wrong as illegalizing pot or not selling alcohol on Sunday.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 29 2019, @01:15PM (5 children)
OK, I'm with you on fixing parenting, that sounds like a good idea. Let's dig a little deeper--when I was a kid (I turned 65 recently) nearly all my grade school peers in the suburbs had two active parents and stay-at-home moms. The few from "broken homes" (one parent a drunk or early death, etc) were outliers. Perhaps sadly, those kids were often shunned or otherwise marginalized, if for no other reason than coming to school looking a bit more disheveled than the rest of us--my guess is that one parent just can't keep up with everything?
Switch to present time and even stable looking parents (like a 40-ish professional couple I know) can blow apart--last year the mom started acting odd and eventually tried to OD on some over-the-counter med. Now they are getting divorced and the 5 year old is in a single parent home...like the majority of his suburban kindergarten peers.
Does fixing parenting require fixing a bunch of things so that couples (married or not, I don't care) stick together?
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 29 2019, @04:30PM
A whole lot of things, yep. Almost none of which should be fixed by legislation. Starting with parents stopping telling their children they can be anything they want to be and that they should all go to college because (implied) working for a living is somehow bad or beneath them. Next it would be nice if we shot Cinderella in the head so we could get rid of the notion that regular doses of oxytocin (romance/infatuation) are the most important thing, or even necessary, for a loving marriage. The list is a damned long one though and I don't feel the need to be that verbose.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 29 2019, @06:30PM (3 children)
Sticking together doesn't mean their relationship is happy or stable. So many of these seemingly happy households in the past were anything but, because, as it turns out, staying in a terrible relationship 'for the kids' doesn't make one happy. Having children in general simply destroys even otherwise happy relationships. Plus, it was harder to avoid having children in the past than it is today, so there were many miserable people who wished they could have avoided children.
The Good Old Days didn't exist, period.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 29 2019, @08:47PM (2 children)
Unless you're being physically abused, you're part of the reason why the relationship is terrible. Living with someone else requires you both do things you'd prefer not to every single day to keep from getting on their very last nerve. And not driving them nuts is every bit as much your obligation as them not driving you nuts is theirs. If everyone you date turns out to be an asshole, you're the asshole not them.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 02 2020, @10:11AM (1 child)
You might just be incompatible, and now feel 'stuck' because you had kids with the other person. Either way, sticking together doesn't mean the relationship is healthy.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday January 02 2020, @12:52PM
Nah, that just marks you as the self-centered asshole who's causing the problems.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday December 29 2019, @02:12PM (16 children)
When there are laws that forcibly remove children from the home 180+ days a year, 6+ hours a day for 12+ years... yes, I'm thinking that the society that is "taking over" the raising of children for all that time also needs laws that mandate what is happening when the children are forcibly removed from parental care and guidance. I do believe the socialization in school is a good thing, but without some baseline regulation it can become bad.
For instance, while my 14 year old is in high school, I don't want him socially pressured to start ripping Juuls every time he has a chance, and there are plenty of chances in high school - which is the point of high school: learn to make your own choices in a safe environment with minimal oversight, but IMPO choices like drinking and smoking should not be available to 14 year olds.
Note from personal history, with the drinking age at 18 a number of my high school friends including myself did occasionally smuggle alcohol and get a pretty good buzz going BEFORE school a few times. And, yes, while I didn't personally inhale, there was a 20%+ population in my high school that regularly obtained illegal substances and consumed them on campus - were that legal and permitted in the open those numbers wouldn't rise to 100%, but they would expose many more 14 year olds to the choice of experimentation in the (good in many ways) weak supervision and guidance environment of high schools, a choice that the majority of parents still feel should not be in the hands of their 14 year olds while they are forcibly removed from parental supervision and guidance.
With the current economic environment (also in many ways imposed by our government), quite a few "children" aren't leaving the nest even after getting their college degrees.
When I was 21 I had been living in a major metropolitan city 4+ hours away from the parents for 6 years, basically "on my own" making most of my own money for 2 years. I dated a 19 year old - which, at the outset didn't seem like a huge age difference, until things went sideways and it became very apparent that her social situation, still living in her family home in a very small town, was worlds apart from my own.
As others have said in this thread, chronological age is a shitty measure of maturity - but legislators seem to lack the inventiveness to craft laws based on better measures of maturity, so age is what you can usually expect these types of laws to be based on.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 29 2019, @04:52PM (15 children)
Your PO is incorrect and actively harmful. You want a child to learn something, you teach them. This includes responsible behavior towards intoxicants. And, as with everything else, they should learn this as soon as they're actually able to learn it.
Your job as a parent is not to protect their innocence, it's to destroy it. The goal is to create adults that are capable of handling any situation that crops up in their lives as well as you're able to prepare them. The world has no need of more middle-aged children who can't tie their own metaphorical shoes.
That's not the economic environment. That's shitty parenting. When it's time for a bird to learn to fly, it gets kicked out of the nest not coddled until it feels like flying.
That's also why you pick the age of when someone should be able to handle life and draw a bright line declaring "on the other side of this you are an adult and responsible for all your own fuck-ups". And then remove every age-limited law beyond that line. Legislation and parenting both should never protect someone from something they're capable of handling on their own, even if some of them might handle it poorly. Doing otherwise deprives them of the opportunity to learn from their own fuck-ups; which are the best learned lessons there will ever be.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday December 29 2019, @05:50PM (14 children)
Good luck with that... in that same era (late 70s / early 80s) my father taught at a private high school, "good kids" with lots of parental involvement, guidance, nurturing, stay at home moms, the works. Unfortunately, they also had above average access to pocket money, and as a result that particular high school was running closer to 80% illegal drug users, and a good percentage of those kids, with all their familial advantages, still ended up trashing their futures.
It's a matter of continuous guidance, and cutting the strings when they are able to make their own mistakes safely. Having children at age 12? Probably not the best idea in today's society, but I'm sure that some 12 year old sexually active kids are less than 100% proficient at birth control methods. But hiding sexual partners from your parents and avoiding that parental guidance is a pretty serious challenge as compared to hiding e-cigs and becoming a heavy nicotine user. Ability for non helicopter / non-plastic bubble parents to detect / guide / intervene before nicotine addiction has taken serious hold? Limited, at best.
In my experience, that "bright line" for 95-5 confidence that people aren't going to seriously fuck up and knowingly do things that they will regret for decades to come seems to be somewhere in the late 20s for most people. Neuroscience / study of brain development backs that up. For sake of argument, we can throw out the 25% or so of the population that never will grow up and learn not to hurt themselves, although - with better parenting and guidance, a good number of those fuckups could have done better.
That's where I think this is "good legislation" - young brains aren't capable of preventing themselves from developing into chemically dependent addicts. Exposure to nicotine develops additional nicotine receptors in the brain, which increase the craving for nicotine.
Below about age 25 the brain is still significantly "plastic" and much faster to develop addiction. If Philip Morris / Altria / RJReynolds published their research, they suspected these things back before the 1950s, actively marketed to them in the 1960s, and didn't really start getting regulatory pushback in the US until the 1970s. It's not a matter of "some minority" handling it poorly, it's a huge chunk of the population that's vulnerable.
So, yeah, let's have a Darwinian Lord of the Flies situation, and then around age 30 just cull the fuckups? But, even that doesn't work because the fuckups don't all fail 100%, they still go on to have kids of their own, some manage to get successful careers anyway - the president of my first job/company (a pulmonary function lung health concern) was himself (like a huge chunk of his generation) addicted to cigarettes and he had his major heart attack at age 50, stroked out - finally managed to kick the cigarettes and retired to live out his days 60% disabled. Did his parents educate him about the dangers of addiction and smoking? Yeah. Did the M.D. he worked with for 20 years know all about what the cigarettes were doing to him (and periodically nudge him about it)? Better than 99.99% of the population, yeah. Did he wish he wasn't hooked on nicotine? Yeah, from about age 25 he wished he could quit, but it was just too hard for him. Did any of this stop him from smoking 1 to 2 packs a day until his stroke? Not at all.
Just because my wife, uncle and grandfather managed to quit smoking after years of doing it isn't a good reason to throw major chunks of the population into the hands of the addiction industry where they're going to be unable to get out.
I totally believe in this approach, and have let my kids get themselves in trouble more than mom ever would. About a year ago my 15 year old got himself banned from a local grocery store - nothing dangerous, serious or harmful to anyone involved, but I'm glad it went down like it did (over a space of months of weekly visits): he got a warning, I didn't fully understand what was going on - let him continue after clear warnings that his behavior - whatever it was - was unacceptable, he continued, now he's banned. That's a lesson that should sink in a lot better than any no-consequence talking-tos.
In the question of "who should be allowed to buy e-cigs"? I think an ideal answer would be: A) anyone (of any age) who has an existing nicotine addiction - they are 100% preferable to burning leaves. B) anyone who is capable of deciding for themselves whether or not they want to play with addictive chemicals for recreational purposes. Is there a bright-line age for B)? Maybe 25, definitely 30 - based on the neuroscience. Below that age it's a much fuzzier question - are they independent? Making their own way in the world without parental or government support? If they're dependent on their parents for support, IMO their parents should also have a say in whether or not their dependent children are going to play with addictive chemicals for recreational purposes - and ditto for those who are dependent on the government for their food and shelter. Can you write a law that encodes that sentiment? Probably not in our system.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 29 2019, @06:42PM
Then you should be advocating raising the drinking, smoking, army, etc. age to 25, not 21. In fact, with such undeveloped brains, people shouldn't even be legally considered adults until they're 25.
The reality is that there are degrees of brain development, and just because someone's brain isn't fully developed, that doesn't mean they cannot make decisions at all.
Regardless of any harm done by smoking or alcohol, I don't think the ends justify the means. Abolish all government limits on drugs. Authoritarianism is necessarily worse than any harm done by drugs.
The number of far greater than 25%. Authoritarianism is a disease of the mind, and it has taken hold of many people in supposedly free countries. Anyone who supports the NSA's unconstitutional mass surveillance, the drug war, the Unpatriotic Act, the TSA, the unconstitutional wars overseas against countries that didn't attack us, etc. is a cancer upon free society. These people will likely never grow up and learn not to hurt themselves and others.
With that said, the answer is not more authoritarianism.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 29 2019, @09:03PM (8 children)
Telling them they shouldn't drink or do drugs is to life in a world with readily available intoxicants as abstinence only programs are to sex. Teach them as soon as they're old enough to understand. Including the labs. Ideally this should be accompanied by access to several examples of what happens when you use them irresponsibly. Not worst possible outcome scare tactics, realistic examples.
Incredibly fucked up metric. You do not oppress 95% of the population for the benefit of the other 5%.
Thousands of years of very young alcohol consumption data from Europe puts the lie to that. The exact opposite is in fact true. Teach a child to use $substance in moderation under supervised conditions while they're growing up and you have much fewer idiots going out binging themselves into a gutter as soon as they're able.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @03:06AM (5 children)
No, you reduce the chances of 95% of the population becoming a burden on the rest of the population after they fuck up. It's not for the benefit of the 5%, it's for the benefit of everyone who pays taxes and has to support the (often incredibly expensive) screwups.
Alcohol and THC aren't addictive in the way that nicotine, heroin, oxycontin, etc. are. Yeah, I "cured" my train wreck of a brother from alcohol when he was about 17 - showed up at my place in mom's car and started sipping on a bottle of Bacardi white Rum he brought from home, wasn't making much progress against the harshness, so I introduced him to Ouzo (80 proof Greek candy if you're unfamiliar) - he killed a 750 ml bottle that night (in a safe environment), and hasn't really done much heavy drinking since...
As for the idiots... there are all kinds of psychological motivations for idiotic/self destructive behavior, childhood repression is a pretty minor one in my experience - depression, low self esteem, feelings of isolation, inadequacy, rebellion against authority, desire to fit in with a certain crowd - those all rank pretty high as compared to "I wasn't allowed to drink until I was 21, IT'S MY TIME NOW, WOO HOOOOOOOO!". Alcohol addiction clearly does "become a thing" for many people, my ex-stewardess Aunt for one, but it's more often a component of a larger problem than it is an outright physiological craving the way that cigarettes or pain meds become.
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(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 30 2019, @04:59PM (4 children)
Then don't support the screw-ups. That's exactly the same kind of lunacy you're advocating on an individual level here. It doesn't matter if it's done at a national level or an individual level, protecting people from the consequences of their choices harms everyone.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @07:07PM (3 children)
Well, whether that's a good thought or a bad one, it's the opposite of the system we've got.
The system we've got provides the most support to the most pathetic and hopeless of the screwups. Minor screwups who still have some modicum of family or other support get their state support cut so as to continue to drain the family / other supporters as dry as possible - that fits really well with my Great Depression era grandmother's philosophy of charity, but not mine.
If that's your philosophy, it's a delusional one with no connection to modern reality. Consequences of choices eventually result in starvation and death, and U.S. social security administration hasn't been letting people starve or die for over 80 years now.
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(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 30 2019, @09:49PM (2 children)
It's not delusional to tell someone they're going the wrong way and need to turn around because the road they're on goes off the edge of a cliff where they're headed.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @10:33PM (1 child)
Telling them while they're on the road, yes, that makes sense, some might say that a youth ban on nicotine purchases is the proverbial "sign on the road" - God knows that most kids that age, myself included, don't really process "this is your brain on drugs" messaging the way Nancy Reagan claimed to want us to.
What you've been advocating for is more akin to ignoring them as they approach the cliff and mocking them as they fall.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 31 2019, @04:47AM
No, it's telling them the road they're driving down is going to fuck them six ways to Sunday if they don't stop and go the other way. There is no point where it's better to go off the cliff.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 30 2019, @05:07AM (1 child)
It is not an inevitability that your kids will end up drinking. They may try it, but that's not the same as making it an ongoing habit.
I believe kids are most heavily influenced by the examples around them. That defines what is normal and acceptable. To that end, never having been a huge drinker, I gave it up completely to set a good example for my young kids. Deeds carry 10 times as much weight as words. Let them see that you don't have to get intoxicated to enjoy yourself or as a "reward." Show them a different way.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 30 2019, @05:02PM
Also a valid approach but completely counterproductive if they're feeling rebellious. A learned habit of good behavior will stick with them a lot better.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Oakenshield on Wednesday January 01 2020, @02:44PM (3 children)
Since he managed to quit after his stroke/heart attack, I'd argue it wasn't too hard after all.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 01 2020, @03:02PM (2 children)
Being locked in a hospital room unable to get out of your bed even to use the toilet for months is some pretty serious rehab intervention. None of his doctors, friends or family would smuggle cigarettes in for him - which certainly helped.
I suppose if, around age 30 or 40, he had put himself in similar restraints for a similar amount of time he might have kicked the cigs then. But without the constant reminder of being half blind, slurring his speech, and walking clumsily - he probably would have been more likely to relapse.
I know plenty of people who did smoke for years and kick the habit - with varying degrees of bitching about it while they did it. I even have a nephew who was a serious heroin user for 3 years and has now been off of that for almost 10 years. Some people can do it, in the case of heroin most can't in this lifetime. My aunt kicked cigarettes after 30 years of smoking, but only while compensating with overeating - she's been off cigarettes for about 15 years now, but is still seriously overweight, which she wasn't at all while smoking. And we all know how easy it is for the obese to lose weight, right?
Choice is great. Choice driven by aggressive marketing of highly addictive chemicals? Needs some kind of regulation, or should we bring back Cocaine Cola and install vending machines in every public school starting with free samples in kindergarten? I don't like outright bans either, but in some cases (like heroin) the user death rate even with outright bans is still too high.
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(Score: 2) by Oakenshield on Wednesday January 01 2020, @04:26PM (1 child)
This is a roundabout way to say that willpower was his Kryptonite. That was my point.
You can completely quit cigarettes cold turkey and survive. Your analogy is more in line with the smokers that try to reform by cutting their cigarettes in half but you are partially correct. It's about willpower. Everything else is an excuse.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 01 2020, @06:39PM
Willpower is most people's kryptonite. That was my point.
Put your kids in schools that have free heroin dispensers in every classroom, then tell me how their willpower to quit fares by high school graduation.
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(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Sunday December 29 2019, @11:42PM (3 children)
There's an easy solution to that. The societies which haven't set laws mandating how children are raised have gone extinct, because it turns out that letting parents be shitty means that the future generation of adults is even more shitty and such a society implodes on itself fairly quickly.
That's the beauty of natural selection.
(Here's another opinion that will likely get me reamed on SN. There have been matriarchal societies in the past. They no longer exist. Why? I think modern leaders like Angela Merkel and Carrie Lam are providing a vivid historical reenactment.)
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 30 2019, @12:58AM
Like ream jobs?
I'm not quite sure that the situations in Germany and Hong Kong are due to the leader being a woman, would you think Britain under Thatcher was similar? However Merkel and Lam are there to make sure their overlords wishes are followed. Can't comment about Lam, but Merkel grew up having to serve masters. ♢
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 30 2019, @05:00AM
Total fallacy.
Of course there are societies that place far less legal limits on children. These societies are less organized in general by a govt, and therefore are much less of an organized military power as well. They tend go get rolled by societies that can command their populace at the snap of a finger in massed numbers.
Organization begets more organization this way. Is that equal to moral superiority? Ask the Chinese.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 30 2019, @05:03PM
No, they haven't. You think the world started when you were born and everywhere is like the place you live?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 29 2019, @04:09AM (3 children)
I think it's something like fascism, and also something like democracy of the mob. "You can act all grown up, if you like, as long as you do what we like!"
Oh, you missed something in your list of idiocies for adulthood. Kids as young as 14 have been tried as adults, after committing some heinous crime or another. And, often enough, the crime isn't all that heinous. Steal some poor slob's 20 year old pickup, smash it up, and you're probably still a kid. Steal the county judge's new $status symbol, and you're going away for twenty.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 29 2019, @07:58AM (1 child)
People have been tried as adults for producing child porn of themselves.
This should not be possible! It's like Schrödinger's cat, but for age in our court system. You can be an adult and a child at the same time, in the way that hurts the most.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 02 2020, @04:06PM
this too
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday December 29 2019, @02:14PM
Such an action clearly demonstrates a contempt for the established social order, and the perp needs time away to learn the error of their ways.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 29 2019, @04:24AM (2 children)
The federal government unilaterally raising the smoking or drinking age, or banning drugs, is unconstitutional in the first place.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 29 2019, @05:45AM (1 child)
Those ships have sailed in the 80s, withholding of equalization payments to the states, and in the 90s, letting the FDA regulate tobacco sales, respectively.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 29 2019, @07:41AM
It's still unconstitutional, just like Japanese internment camps - which were approved by the treasonous Supreme Court of the time - were.