Tobacco sales will be banned to under-21s in New York in a new health drive by mayor Michael Bloomberg.
The law will make it the first large US city or state to prohibit sales to young adults.
City health officials hope that raising the legal purchase age from 18 to 21 will lead to a big decline in smoking rates in a critical age group. Most smokers get addicted to cigarettes before 21, and then have trouble quitting.
The ban has limitations, in terms of its ability to stop young people from picking up the deadly habit. Teenagers can still possess tobacco legally. Children will still be able to steal cigarettes from their parents, take them from friends or buy them from the black-market dealers who are common in many neighbourhoods.
But City Health Commissioner Thomas Farley said the idea was to make it more inconvenient for young people to get started, especially teenagers who had previously had easy access to cigarettes through slightly older peers. » | AP | Tuesday, November 19, 2013
My comment:
Michael Bloomberg is really quite unrelenting in his assault on smokers, isn't he? He was once a chain-smoker, but search engines have been purged of the fact, I notice.
As is typical of reformed smokers, when they give up, they want the whole world to give up with them. Bloomberg is no exception to this rule.
So now, a New Yorker can die for his country before the age of 21, but he will not be able to buy a pack of cigarettes. I don't know whether other people would agree with me on this, but that seems to me to be ridiculous. If a young man is old enough to die for his country, he is old enough to have a drag.
Michael Bloomberg appears to have a tyrannical side to his nature. He will have his way. It's his way or the highway! It amazes me that the once freedom lovers of America put up with Bloomberg's meddlesome ways. – © Mark
