Court upholds town bylaw banning anyone born in 21st century from buying tobacco products
Court upholds town bylaw banning anyone born in 21st century from buying tobacco products
A Massachusetts town that adopted an unusual ordinance banning the sale of tobacco to anyone born in the 21st century is being looked at as a possible model for other cities and towns hoping to further clamp down on cigarettes and other tobacco products.
You're viewing a single thread.
Smoking is not good for your health, but we as Americans are free to make that choice for ourselves. I think thatâs the definition of unconstitutional. Banning something like that is only going to make it more widespread and sketchy. Look at the war on drugs and what itâs done, but sure itâll work this time.
I don't think "unconstitutional" is the word you want here. There's endless things you are not free to purchase or choose for yourself.
âUnconstitutionalâ == I donât like it
Literally as deep as most peopleâs understanding goes.
It's more like unconstitutional == government overreach
Also what language do you code in?
Not going to argue about whether or not it's constitutional (because I don't know), but I just wanted to point out that this case is slightly more complicated than just "you're not allowed to purchase". It's "you're not allowed to purchase.... BUT other people are". Which means it's potentially a question of discrimination, which is maybe not as cut-and-dry as a "normal" law banning a substance across the board.
The cost of cigs is also artificially inflated in many places. Iâm glad to see less of the younger crowd smoking, thatâs a good thing. But doing it in these ways just feels plain un-American.
We let an awful lot of things that are bad for us slide, because the effects arenât as visible.
Back to the old days of buying smokes out of some guy's trunk.
Thank god i can gi back to buying individual smokes when i am hammered at the bar. Nothing worse than smoking a pack of cigarettes over the course of a week because i had a craving while drunk.
Honestly tho yeah, just look at prohibition.
That's what I mean. As someone else pointed out, all it does is make it inconvenient, and it opens up a black market. People are gonna do what they want. Either this means they'll just drive to another city/county/state, or someone is going to acquire them in bulk and sell them on black alleys.
In my mind, a more effective approach is to regulate where someone can smoke. There are a number of CA cities where it's effectively illegal to smoke a cigarette within city limits (aside from private property), which drives smokers into little nooks and crannies. Ultimately most people want it out of sight and out of mind, and to not walk into a cloud of it on a sidewalk or have their children seeing/smelling it, which is 100% reasonable. But telling someone they're not allowed to buy it is going to incentivize some to seek it out more.