Washington State Department of Health – Why 21?

So 18 year olds can go die in war but can't buy booze or smokes

Why not just raise the age of becoming an adult to 21. It really doesn't make sense we're considered adults at 18 but with some things we're still treated like we're not adults. Honestly if your not old enough to buy alcohol or cigarettes then your not old enough vote or die for your country.

THIS DELIBERATELY VIOLATES THE 14TH AMENDMENT OF THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION!!!!! #18NOT21 #ENDYOUTHPROHIBITION

New yorkers are so quick to make decisions for everyone but themselves. It's the fact that people don't realize that beaurocracy and restriction of personal liberties won't solve anything that's so mindblowing. And i can already hear it coming, so I'll just add that I'm 23, started stealing cigarettes from my parents at age 12 and quit smoking on April 1st this year. (No april fool joke)

Because it’s my god given right to smoke

Yeah, this is the problem

Keep voting for the same ass clowns and this is whats going to happen. But illegals can get a drivers license.

Why not band them altogether

Black market is only getting stronger.

Can't wait till companies cancel medical coverage for smokers.

Minneapolis acts like a clean progressive city. It's trash. I literally saw two guys fighting, a gun got drawn and a shot was fired. Both drunk as piss and the cops told them get in your car and go home. This was YESTERDAY.

All MN school districts should stop hiring smokers - from superintendents to board members to teachers on down to bus drivers and janitors - and use the savings from lower employee healthcare costs to pay teachers more. School children will benefit simultaneously from about 180 days at school each year free from exposure to school employees secondhand smoke and free from seeing role models normalizing substance abuse. Increase tobacco taxes also to decrease the cost of the 60% of healthcare spending for treatment of preventable smoking related diseases which is paid for by government programs. "The great majority of people who do not smoke should not be forced to pay the costs of people who do," said John Banzhaf, executive director of Action on Smoking and Health. 'Since the Congressional Budget Office [CBO] estimates that Obamacare would cost about $1.34 trillion over the next decade – just under $140 billion/yr – reducing smoking could cover the entire cost of any new health plan – including many times over the costs attributable to pre-existing conditions – without using taxpayers’ money, or imposing higher insurance rates on the great majority of Americans who do not smoke. Indeed, notes Banzhaf, since neither Obamacare nor any of the major Republican approaches to change it actually reduce health-care costs but rather simply try to shift the huge existing burden, doing something like reducing smoking may be the only way to reduce health-care costs which are now imposed on policy holders, taxpayers, medical device makers, and others.' -John Banzhaf 'Helen Darling, president of the National Business Group on Health, a Washington-based nonprofit, said making smokers pay more is all about equity. "Everyone who doesn't smoke pays for the people who do smoke - that to us is not fair," she said, noting how smokers are at higher risk for costly diseases.' www.nydailynews.com/amp/news/politics/33b-puffers-hit-smokers-health-care-costs-advocacy-group-ur... 'The American Lung Association estimates that smoking costs the American economy about $322 billion a year. This includes over $175 billion in direct medical care for adults, but does not include the huge increased indirect costs such has higher numbers of complications from surgery, delayed healing, etc. Most of this alarming cost – much more than twice the entire cost of Obamacare – is borne by nonsmoking taxpayers in the form of higher taxes (for Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs) as well as ever-escalating health care costs (in the form of higher premiums, changing deductibles, etc.).' -John Banzhaf While teachers now strike for pay (Pueblo, Colorado) and students walkout against guns (Columbine, Colorado), both Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris were teenage cigarette smoking nicotine addicts. Nicotine pathologically and permanently distorts and deforms developing brains. "Here are the cigarette brands Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold smoked" ted-bundt-cake-blog.tumblr.com/post/114007361487/ericharrisblog-here-are-the-cigarettes-brand-eric Boys & girls: "Short- and Long-Term Consequences of Nicotine...by NA Goriounova · 2012 The prefrontal cortex (PFC), the brain area responsible for executive functions and attention performance, is one of the last brain areas to mature and is still developing during adolescence. Smoking during adolescence increases the risk of developing psychiatric disorders..." www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3543069/ Pertaining to the opioid epidemic, nicotine is as addictive as heroin. "Adolescents who abuse drugs...are at greater risk of unplanned pregnancies, violence ..." m.newsok.com/article/3306555/why-drugs-cause-brain-damage Girls: "Prostitutes were also more likely to smoke cigarettes than non-prostitutes, and young ... women working as prostitutes are seriously affected." onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1360-0443.1989.tb00606.x

THIS DELIBERATELY VIOLATES THE 14TH AMENDMENT OF THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION!!!!! #18NOT21 #ENDYOUTHPROHIBITION

Should be 91, but it’s a start

Im ok with this

Don't forget to raise military recruitment up to 21 while you're at it

Raise the voting age to 21 while you're at it.

Fasisim at it's finest.

All it does is drive business from the city. You have crack heads running around and people pissing and shitting everywhere and this is our focus?

Keep driving business to the burbs. The only people that suffer are working folks in Minneapolis.

Minneapolis and the war on business. Force more people to unemployment and EBT.

This can’t be true?? John Schierman

The teen smoking rate is going to go up, smoking will associated with being cool, older, more mature edgy because it's ilegal , you fucking facists have your heads up your ass

Smoke if ya got em

What a bunch of wackos

Trash people acting like it's Toronto or something. I see people driving around high on heroine and pcp, homeless on every corner and we are worried about menthols and the smoking age.

Fucking fascists.