Incorrect.
A black market is created, kids still smoke, but poor people making a buck selling to kids go to jail.
It doesn’t fix the issue and syphons poor people into prisons.
How do you propose this black market gets created? In theory, no new addicts would get created because the smoking age rises in lockstep with the people themselves.
You really have a surface-level understanding of how the world works, I take it.
There is already a black/gray marked near many schools (for the younger, there are cigarettes and for the older there is weed.) it’s a market where there is just one person selling, it is more a fluid market where the young people sell and buy to each other, mostly there are multiple kids with connections to get the goods in any school and then it rotates through the different kids by selling, buying, stealing etc. Source: I’m 26 now, and don’t believe that has changed since I left school.
Prohibition laws do put people in prison.
“Noone goes to prison for underage smoking”. False. The people selling the cigarettes, poor people trying to make a buck, go to jail for the underage smoking.
I suggest we do nothing.
Prohibition doesn’t work.
Mind your own business.
I would argue that society should reserve the right to punish individuals who harm others for their personal benefit.
And I would argue that selling a physically addictive substance that directly causes harm with no benefit to the user for personal profit is causing harm.
So while I don’t support arresting people for smoking, I 100% so support arresting people for selling.
