Smoking Age

All true, but it doesn't change the fact that making arguments on the basis of an assumed equality of risk interpretation is fallacious.

Yeah I think that's a sound basic principle to go by, now having a principle doesn't mean it can't ever be transgressed, it means that if you transgress it you should acknowledge it as such, afterall exceptions prove the rule. Now I think in terms of the seat belt laws they can be justified on the basis that they save lives, and there doesn't seem to be anyone opposed to them, also they apply no matter what age you are and therefore don't raise questions about the age of agency.

A change in the smoking law however raises the question of when some is responsible enough to make choices, there's also the fact that many people derive pleasure out of smoking in a way i've not encountered with seat belts. The point is that if your going to attempt to defend raising the age at which people can buy cigs your going to open a whole can of worms around things like sex. I mean if you can bring another life into the world at 16 surely you should be allowed a wee smoke.

I think the argument is that you can't and shouldn't legislate in such a manner, that we have to have a cut off point at which we say "people can make up their own minds". Now the current one of 16 seems atleast consistent, afterall if you can have kid, risk an STD and furthermore work, then you should be able to smoke. The current age limit on alcohol is hypocritical and also pretty useless, as it doesn't seem to have much effect on underage drinking, instead it gives it a degree of prestige and edge.

What's your point caller?

Aye, if we have to have an age of consent (and there's not really any workable alternative) then it should be a consistant one.

Most 16 year olds are more than capable of making their own minds up, of making informed choices, even if they do fuck up from time to time, that's at least in part a consequence of having to start making those choices for themselves.

Let's not forget that half the reason more people under 18 take up smoking is cause they reckon it makes them seem older and cooler, something that making it illegal isn't likely to affect.

nah see you threw in some red herring about reckless driving.

don't you think that most people who derive something out of not wearing a seat belt do so mostly because it is illegal, likewise for many 14 year old smokers who think they are cool and grown up, and aren't going to be affected by the ban as kids have been getting cigs from all sorts of sources for decades.

I couldn't care whether it does or it doesn't, i'd rather discuss why you think 16 year olds aren't able to decide for themselves whether to smoke or not and if so then why not extend this to even more pertinent areas like having sex and getting pregnant?

well yes so do I but if the government sought to raise the age of consent to 18 i'd like to think you'd be opposed, I know I could count on Hakim Beys support atleast.

Having children is good, and taking up smoking is always bad.

For fucks sake, why is impressionable peoples "right" to take up a habit which brings no enjoyment, costs loads of money, is bad for skin and teeth, makes you smell, is difficult to give up AND is likely to kill you being defended?

I don't think anyone should have the option to take up smoking, whatever their age, because its fucking stupid. Smokers are jokers.

Most adult smokers wish they could give up don't they? We all know kids take it up to look cool? Why is this acceptable?

I don't know how effective raising the age would be, but I don't doubt it would lower the number of people becoming addicted to smoking at least a bit, and that is a good thing.

In a communist society obviously no one would be allowed to smoke, but until then I support measures like this.

I love you.

I'm really hoping this is irony, or have you just relocated your authoritarian tendencies from make up and body hair to smoking?

Of course people can smoke in a fucking communist society, people have the right to all sorts of shit you might not like. People can endulge in scat play for all I want, and that would certainly make you smell and discolour your fingernails.

Fuck me!

i said convenience food won't be the same, and that i'd doubt your going to find anyone wanting to work in the big pot noddle factory.

Tobacco however can be grown, i also doubt cigarettes will be same as they are now.

Why would a useless cash crop be produced when the resources and land could be used for food, cotton etc.?

authoritarian tendencies? obvioulsy I meant it would be decided by a majority vote. Good authority.

Tobacco isn't useless, you can smoke it and everything

In any case, are you really suggesting that only "useful" things would be grown? What about coffee, tea and pot? Are they all useless cash crops, or are they special exceptions?

this is just stupid.

i suppouse we'll not be getting chocolate biscuits either.

fucking protestants!

Chocolate biscuits are a bourgeois decadance. You can have one digestive. And only if you dip it in your tea before you eat it.

Dunking biscuits is decadent!

Coffee, tea and pot are different in that people enjoy them rather than just being addicted to them and feeling relief when they give in to it. (and they're all reputed to have health benefits, so a bit of a strange example.)

So what's it like to not only be psychic, but also know better than everybody else all the time?

Its pretty cool

Also Jack your "convenience" food analogy is crap, it might hold up if I believed that after revolution we would still produce Mayfair or something, but I doubt smokers will want shitty cheapo fags in communism.

Me and JAck were discussing this on New Years Eve instead of partying, and we decided that cigars would be fine occaisonally. As long as Alan doesn't smoke them in CAG meetings.

Seriously, have Jack, Jef and Jess developed a fuckin meth habit? This is seriously mental, it almost looks like one of Jack's hilarious pranks. Is he giggling on MSN right now? It's fucked.

For the record, this thread is a perfect example of why, for all his warts and flames, Belfast shouldn't be banned. Without him threads like this would be a liberal love in of Brighton do-gooders.

Jack you do realise that pot's said to be about twice as carcinogenic as tobacco right? By that logic, you probably smoke as much carcinogens per diem as many smokers.

That shit about extreme sports just demonstrates how abstracted from reality some posters on here really are. There'd be minimal demand for reckless activity if life under capital wasn't so fuckin boring?

Jack the sooner you find a new routine and give Contrarian Clive a wee rest the better.

Actually your new double act "Fag and his hag" with Jess isn't much funnier. I mean there is only soo far you can go with "oh we like Heat, aren't we soo post modern and ironically ironic".

It's like a Gimmee, Gimmee, Gimmee, Jimmy Carr motorway pile up, which unlike the image of them being cut out of a car half dead, isn't that funny. [/Jimmy Carr]

I know we like to mock individualists but until the Peoples Republic of North Korea drives over the Mourne Mountains I'm going to keep such thoughts to myself.

Of course not but it demonstrates the completely arbitrary and fallacious nature of your arguments. You consider yourself completely above the mysterious and very foolish Other who smokes and parachute jumps while your only real activities are smoking pot, posting on here and playing Xbox. Should we make you pay for your RSI treatment and arthritis? More or less everything we do is really bad for us, that's reality of capitalism. It turns us into incomplete humans, not using our potential and instead damaging ourselves in order to survive.

Your whining about me smoking at SF meetings would indicate otherwise.

I was with you up until this load of bollox. What exactly is a complete human? Why would playing the X Box be anyless completely human than sailing the atlantic, swimming with dolphins or wanking over Maurice Brinton?

So you have weak pussy eyes, not lungs?

I always knew there was something not right about feminists.