Teenage Smoking Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Teen days Smoking - Essay ExampleAs per the findings of Holm et al, 80% of all smokers in the fall in States begin smoking even to begin with the geezerhood of 18 (27). Because of the increased threat it raises to health and personal integrity, the prohibition of teenaged smoking has become the most essential legal concern. In the joined States, the issue has been a topic for debate for several decades between tobacco selling tycoons and social activists. Evidently, as an amicable solution to the controversial issue, the legal age of smoking should be embossed, when at the same time, teenage smokers are perceived as vulnerable group that requires comprehensive care. The minimum legal age all for using or purchasing/selling tobacco products varies from country to country with an average range of 18-24. In most of the European countries including Poland, Serbia, Portugal, France, and UK the minimum legal age for smoking coffin nails is now 18. In contrast in the United States, t here is no unified regulation on this issue and the minimum age barrier varies from state to state. Although 18 has been generally accepted as the minimum age, the decision is left to the discretion of states. For instance, many states including Alabama, Alaska, New Jersey, and some other counties of New York study recently reset the minimum age for smoking from 18 to 19. As per the Revised Washington Code, a person under the age of 18 who purchases or attempts to purchase, possesses, or attempts to possesses, obtain, or attempts to obtain cigarettes or tobacco products commits a class 3 civil infraction under chapter 7.8. (RCW 2002). Obviously, teenage smoking has to be approached with a socio-psychological perspective other than merely considering it as a health issue. Arguments favoring the rise of legal age to 19 or 21 strongly opine that teenage smoking indicates the behavioral inconsistency among adolescents which merchant ship be resolved only through comprehensive program s with the collective involvement of various governmental and non-governmental organizations. In couch to define the behavioral changes of teenagers with regard to smoking as a symptom, we need to analyze some other aspects of this controversy. Researchers are deeply at odds regarding the factors that escort ones behavior. Despite the actual trait, behavior of an individual is primarily determined by situational variables and environment. Hence, a persons behavior is ever changing depending on the situation, place, and the surroundings. If an individual demonstrates exceeding emotional attachment or detachment to anything that comes within his personal environment it presumably point to a behavioral problem. This can be true with the adolescent smokers no matter how they got into this risk group. Several attempts have been made to reduce the use of tobacco products among the youth in the United States notably since 1996 as Food and Drug Administration (FDA) revised its previous p olicy. As Jacobson notes, the initial step the States took was to introduce provisions to suit tobacco effort to recover healthcare costs associated with smoking among medical recipients (1). One of the notable actions implemented with intent to reduce teenage smoking is the hike in cigarette price which according to some researchers has brought about significant decline in smoking habits. As Jacobson states, the cost of cigarettes faced by teenagers can be raised through both price and non-price measures. Policy makers at the federal, state, and local levels can increase the price of cigarettes by raising cigarettes excise taxes-perhaps the most direct pass of action (Jacobson, 178). Admittedly, till date, the smoking