California Raises Smoking Age to 21

http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/05/health/california-smoking-age-21/index.html

I would love to get into a time machine and go back to about 1969 so I could tell my cigarette puffing parents about all of the restrictions on smokers in the 2010s, LOL! My mother would be spitting out venomous words and cursing the future, for sure, because she liked her smokes. It would also give me a chance to admonish my younger self, who was then prodigiously experimenting with smoking (though, thankfully, I never started the cigs habitually....).

My Dad eventually quit smoking in 1978. My Mom never quit, even after her youngest sister died from lung cancer in 1984.

One example I would lay on the younger Z-man would be our mother and her three sisters. All were born between 1924 and 1930, and three of the four became smokers. The youngest sister, a smoker, died of lung cancer at age 54 in 1984. My mom died of colon cancer in 1996 at age 71. My Aunt B___, a heavy smoker who managed to live until 2009 (age 83)--she was beset with terrible COPD and breathing issues near the end of her life, but you would never hear her attribute this to her smoking.

This leads me to Aunt E__, the non-smoker. She will be 88 years old this coming August. She still has her wits and drives a car, and lives without assistance in a big farmhouse on a farm in Wisconsin.  My brother and his wife paid her a visit recently, and he told me she is sharp as a tack and doing well. Though there may be other factors attributed to her good health, not smoking was certainly a positive factor in her life.....

Interesting stories, Z-man, and I'm sure all or most would wish there were less smoking going on in the world.   (I myself was a very heavy smoker; quit cold turkey in 1990 and never had another, but, despite all the rosy promises about lungs looking like one never smoked after a certain number of years, I know better -- I still have elevated chances of all types of residual problems down the road.)

But what I'm idly wondering is, what kind of research do we have that says such age restrictions really do a lot of good?  I'm not saying I doubt it; I'm just saying I'd like to see some evidence.   Have to hope California had such proof in hand before imposing the new law.

I'll say one thing I wish could happen here, even though I know it'll raise some ire: that smoking would be banned on our beaches.  I don't begrudge people their right to smoke, but when the wind brings their constant smoke to my nose, is that fair?  It can effectively ruin a beach afternoon for me.  Yes, I can move-- but hey, they should be the ones moving.  

Naturally I don't say anything as I don't wish to invite confrontation.

This is not to mention that cigarette butts typically comprise the greatest bulk in any beach trash cleanup operation.

I never smoked and have had my upper left lobe removed with a tumor in 2008, and now have four marble sized tumors in my lungs and bronchial tubes. If a young person could feel what it is like with a really bad pnuemonia......they would never smoke, but like our parents generation the smokes make a person cool and hip, and then they are simply addicted and it is too late. I am so happy they will be cracking down on youth smoking.