Public 'want smoking age raised'

[brighton rock]

Public 'want smoking age raised'


Two thirds backed a smoking ban in pubs

Four out of five people want the legal smoking age to be raised from 16 to 18 to deter young people from taking up the habit, a BBC poll suggests.

ICM conducted the nationwide phone poll of 1,010 adults in England, Wales and Scotland between 20 and 22 August.

The majority of people believed raising the age at which teenagers could buy cigarettes would deter them from taking up the habit.

A slight majority thought the age limit should be raised to 21.

 

[Fluffster]

By increasing the legal smoking age it will just make it more of a "rebelious" thing to do, thus increasing the amount of kids wanting to take it up in order to look "cool". The only way to deter kids from smoking is to shed this image that smoking is a cool thing to do, how? I don't know. However as a non-smoker i would LOVE to come back from the pub not smelling like a fricking ash tray!

 

[Scotty Mac]

it wont deter it - as fluffster says the only way to stop it is by making smoking seem 'uncool'

 

[Schrödinger's Toad]

I don´t think it would necessarily cause an increase, just make it harder for them to get the fags. Would love to see smoking banned in restaurants at least, if not pubs.

 

[Wilts]

By increasing the legal smoking age it will just make it more of a "rebelious" thing to do, thus increasing the amount of kids wanting to take it up in order to look "cool". The only way to deter kids from smoking is to shed this image that smoking is a cool thing to do, how? I don't know. However as a non-smoker i would LOVE to come back from the pub not smelling like a fricking ash tray!

True - as soon as they brought down the age for homosexual activity down to 18 from 21 I've never found it half as much fun.

 

[Robbie G]

it wont deter it - as fluffster says the only way to stop it is by making smoking seem 'uncool'

I never thought a stick of death could be cool

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

they have stopped it in some bars in brighton which is a big step forward

 

[mejonaNO12 aka riskit]

I never thought a stick of death could be cool

if you have big looped golden earings or a burberry cap then anything looks cool

i personally hate smoking but i understand how some people a almost forced into it under peer pressure. ive seen it so often with people i know and you can tell they only smake at first because others are. sad really but its the reality

 

[¡Cereal Killer!]

it wont deter it - as fluffster says the only way to stop it is by making smoking seem 'uncool'

Get a bunch of ugly/geeky kids/people (maybe geek like people with bald pages) to smoke and try to look cool and maybe trying to look like a rapstar and then a text thingy comes up and says "smoking does NOT make you cool" then

OR

Get a load of teenagers who used to smoke for an advert who are all townies and thinking they are "blinging", maybe rapping about how cool smoking is, then make the advert fast forward 10 years the same people are in the park and they are all going bald and ugly and all fat and breathless and they are talking how they wish they had never started smoking.

or something along these lines

 

[beorhthelm]

id like to point out that some people smoke because they LIKE it. Hasnt anyone wondered why it was started in the first place?

I think itd be a good idea to raise the age though. I remember it being all too easy to buy fags at 14-15. And actually enforcing the fines against shops that sell to underaged might help too.

 

[Robbie G]

Peer pressure is a cruel thing!

Get a load of teenagers who used to smoke for an advert who are all townies and thinking they are "blinging", maybe rapping about how cool smoking is, then make the advert fast forward 10 years the same people are in the park and they are all going bald and ugly and all fat and breathless and they are talking how they wish they had never started smoking.

Good idea

 

[elbowpatches]

After spending the last two weeks on nicotine patches I would love to have a ban on smoking in public places and raise the age of smoking.

I spent two weeks in Ireland and was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to drink and not smoke when the only option would have been to go out in the cold and wet.

 

[dougdeep]

Wouldn't it be simpler if 18 was the legal age for everything. Smoking, gambling, driving cars? And those under 18 could get half price on buses and trains etc.

 

[mejonaNO12 aka riskit]

Wouldn't it be simpler if 18 was the legal age for everything. Smoking, gambling, driving cars? And those under 18 could get half price on buses and trains etc.

not for driving!! its the one thing us youngsters can hold on to!

 

[Yorkie]

id like to point out that some people smoke because they LIKE it. Hasnt anyone wondered why it was started in the first place?

I think itd be a good idea to raise the age though. I remember it being all too easy to buy fags at 14-15. And actually enforcing the fines against shops that sell to underaged might help too.

That would be a start especially the shops that sell single cigarettes to kids

 

[clapham_gull]

I don't think many people smoke cigarettes because they like it - they just think they do.

Cigarettes actually make you feel "normal", it is the withdrawal from nicotine that makes your body feel abnormal.

Did anyone actually like their first cigarette ?

Contradicting myself - I did once have the pleasure of an expensive cuban cigar that was like smoking the most expensive chocolate.

Compared to that cigarettes are absolutely rank, I don't think you're getting the "pleasure" of tobacco at all with fags - just feeding the addiction.

I think you can always spot the hardened addicts smoking the rankest brands.

I used to quite partial to an Embassy Mild - the worst tasting I remember was Lambert and Butler and Asda's own brand.

 

[clapham_gull]

To follow up a previous reply, I think the power of advertising on kids is immense and a campaign to make smoking look uncool (rather than naughty) would have a huge effect.

I seem to remember a cinema? campaign in the early eighties with a sexy woman eating the contents of an ashtray or something.

Yep make smoking look really uncool - good idea.

I don't think showing dying patients in a hospital has much of an effect on kids - perhaps more of an effect on adults as they reach middle age and are still smoking.

Was watching "Time Gentlemen Please..", the Sky One series with Al Murray (the pub landlord).

He was making a joke about the fact that doing this and not doing that to add years to your life is b*llocks, because what you actually want is to have control over when you take the years.

The punchline was something along the lines of I'll have ten more years being 19 , rather an extra ten more years wearing rubber pants in an old peoples home.

A joke, but I thought actually that's quite true, and probably what most kids think.

 

[elbowpatches]

I don't think many people smoke cigarettes because they like it - they just think they do.

Cigarettes actually make you feel "normal", it is the withdrawal from nicotine that makes your body feel abnormal.

I think you can always spot the hardened addicts smoking the rankest brands.

I used to quite partial to an Embassy Mild - the worst tasting I remember was Lambert and Butler and Asda's own brand.

Patches do actually work, which I'm surprised about, a day without them today has left me wanting. This is my second proper attempt at giving up, I broke after six weeks watching Albion at Luton.

As for rankest brands, it was time to give up when my other half was smoking cleaners fags (Mayfair and Berkeley etc) and I was pinching them.

 

[Yorkie]

The only problem with patches is that you are still getting nicotine albeit in smaller doses.

I am glad to say I have been free of the evil weed now for 13 years and I don't miss it one bit.

 

[clapham_gull]

I think that the replacement therapies actually give you a higher dose of nicotine. Its up to you to reduce it..