Tug of War Battle between Health and Smoking

Taken into consideration that smoking has lost great part of its popularity and is now no longer the ‘coolest trend’, recent studies have discovered that each and every day, many more adults wish to put an end to the tug of war battle between health and smoking.

During the last decades, a significant growth in parent awareness has taken over the U.S. Based  on a recent published survey within the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, doctors have arrived to the astonishing conclusion that a great part of the population, would in fact, avoid corrupting others into smoking.

After carefully analyzing all the ballot results of more than 4000 smokers and non-smokers over the age of 18, researchers announced that, almost 50% of them are highly in favor of raising the present age limit from 18 to 21.

According to the CDC’s Smoking and Health director Brian King, switching the minimal age to at least 21, will only be seen as an improvement to society, both health wise and economically. Statistics show that, young people, teenagers in general, are more likely to be affected by the adverse effects of tobacco consuming.

Other attempts of changing the purchasing age limit have also been proposed by the CDC; thus, it had been estimated that, by gradually raising the age limit with only a year more each time, percentage of tobacco consuming was bound to drop without doubt. Even so, members of the Institute of Medicine have reported that by changing the limit to the age of 19, will not in fact highligh a significant ‘effect on reducing the social sources of those in high school’.

Mainly because 9/10 teens have been discovered to satiate their need for smoking long before the age of 18,  raising the age limit, can of course be seen as a crucial development. All CDC studies have managed to point out to the fact that, during the 21^st century, smoking is considered to be one of the leading causes for the high rate mortality.

Nowadays, states such as Alabama, Utah, still allow teenagers of only 18 to purchase tobacco without any restrictions whatsoever. Even though, the majority would tend to decrease all types of threats to a minimum, there still is a total of 11%   of the adult population that have firmly opposed changing the legal age to 21.

Although the proposed changes have not seem to have gained worldwide popularity as researchers did hope, Hawaii on the other hand, is among the few states which have immediately and successfully adopted the new purchasing age limit, by raising it from 18 to 21.

In order to protect and assure a better health for the younger generation, cities and countries across the United States are all taking part in a difficult process to raise the minimum age to 21.

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