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Mitch McConnell’s Misguided Attempt to Raise the Smoking Age
Several months ago, reading a book set in the 1800s, our family hit a snag: explaining what a cigar is. In the scene, the father was smoking one, and my daughter had no idea what it was, and I realized how difficult it would be to explain it. I immediately tried “it’s like a cigarette” and then heard a shocking follow-up question “What’s a cigarette?”
Growing up, my mother smoked. I was exposed to so much second-hand smoke, you could say I was a smoker as well. Most of my friends had at least one parent who smoked, and it was ubiquitous. Now, smoking has become so rarified because of the cost and health concerns, few of my generation and younger took up or kept the habit. Vaping is popular, but a very different animal than smoking leaf-filled sticks like cigarettes or cigars. We don’t have a smoking crisis. And yet, Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is, for some reason, backing legislation to raise the smoking age to 21, like we currently have for alcohol.
The Washington Times reports,
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced Monday he’s backing legislation to raise the national age of tobacco use to 21 years of age, putting major legislative heft behind a growing bipartisan push.
Mr. McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, acknowledged it might seem odd for a senator from his state to be backing this push, but he said he’s come to think something needs to change.
“It shouldn’t be 18 any longer. It should be 21,” he said.
His plan would apply to all tobacco-linked products, including cigarettes and vaping devices.
Mr. McConnell also said a growing awareness of health problems from tobacco is creating a chance for Congress to make changes and confront E-cigarettes, whose use among teens has been soaring.
Youth vaping is a public health crisis,” the senator said.
An individual with expertise in the public policy issues in the vaping arena told me the McConnell decision is related to trying to keep vapes out of the hands of high schoolers. Much like alcohol, when access is limited and seniors in high school can’t pass contraband down to lower classmen.
There has been a misguided push to ban vaping altogether and McConnell’s bill is an attempt to circumvent attempts at bans by keeping vaping out of the hands of young people while still making it accessible to adults. A ban has actually passed in San Francisco, and an assault on the practice is in motion. Funnily, the campaign in the Bay Area was funded by a major tobacco company, and they took aim at vaping in the city to pad their own bottom line. Vaping reduces adult smoking rates; in Ireland, where vaping is banned, the smoking rate for adults is 22%; in England where it is not, the rate is 15%. These neighboring cultures and countries have a great deal in common, and the greatly reduced smoking rate in England is attributable to the popularity of vaping.
Despite the public policy reasoning behind limiting youth access is sound, it’s still an infuriating step for a conservative to further infantilize a generation with a foot already back in the cradle.
Published in GeneralYou can die for your country at 18, but you can't smoke until you're 21. https://t.co/RfizTwh5hs
— Emily “Al Fredo” Zanotti (@emzanotti) May 20, 2019
Every time I buy any vaping products, I get carded.
I’m 59. The law changed, and now they card everybody. Before this, I hadn’t been carded since Carter was president.
Curiously, if I were to switch back to cigarettes, I wouldn’t have to show ID.
The law, as Mr. Bumble informed us, is a ass.
Obviously, the state actually prefers that you smoke cigarettes, with the associated taxes.
I think that they tax them both, but the extra step of getting one’s card out is just ridiculous.
There are different tax structures for different “tobacco” products. My suspicion is that vape is not generating cigarette level tax revenue.
My one employee is a vaper and used to work at a vape shop. He used it to quit smoking and continues to use it to avoid smoking. I have other acquaintances who say the same. While certainly not a healthy activity, the stark contrast with smoking itself is well documented. We should have policies that encourage it as an alternative to smoking, not demonizing it as if it were as bad as smoking.
But of course, actually reducing smoking was not the intent of all of those taxes and regulations. It’s to keep the peasants down, and paying.
Had a random thought. Do they have vape pipes? Looked it up, and yes, they do. Interesting.
And what style of vape pipe would a man like Arahant use? Corn-cob? Sherlock Holmes-style? It’s going to have to look good with a cape, I suppose.
Indeed. It would be a Calabash or a Meerschaum. The only question would be, do they have pre-smoked Meerschaums since presumably vaping would not stain them properly. It won’t give you this:
Double-like. For those who do not know, this sort of pipe is hand carved from a light, porous mineral. So, this is a miniature sculpture adorning a functional core.
And starts out very white. My father had (and probably still has) three of them. I remember one was a lion and a second was an old fisherman. Don’t remember the third off-hand. But Meerschaums are supposed to mellow and get better with age and use like some Chinese teapots.
With some vape systems shrunken to nearly the dimensions of a credit card, there is no technical reason barring a standard pipe bowl insert, perhaps with a set of spacers or a mechanical adjustment to expand and gently press the walls of the bowl, holding a vape insert firmly in place.
The real problem is that the vapor of vape is the enemy of wood or mineral. At best, the stain color would gradually be leached back out of meerschaum, I suspect.
I’m sure there’s a solution. Perhaps just rotating pipes daily so they dry. Perhaps a desiccating system.
Intellectually interesting, but since I’m really not likely to start, it doesn’t matter. But Meerschaum pipes are often wonderful art works.
Yes, as are a number of briar pipes, with different shapes, wood grains, finishes, and pipe-stem fittings. People become collectors and display them in pipe stands, built to present multiple pipes. These are small treasures hunted at estate sales.
Whenever my father passes on, I’m sure there will be some happy treasure hunters.
There are serious pipe and cigar shops that take estate pipes on consignment.
I’ll keep it in mind to tell whoever is in charge at that point.