no, that's not what i'm saying.

Exactly. We have no age requirement for smoking tobacco here. Only an age requirement for buying it. This policy, together with extensive nationwide education campaigns has drastically lowered the number of smoking teenagers.

Wolfy, I'm not about 'bad cops for arresting them'. I'm just trying to say that criminalizing underage smoking isn't going to work.

The fact that teenagers start smoking says nothing about their so called level of responsibility. The emotional stages that teenagers go through, the peer group pressure, the social uncertainties, the problems they (feel they) have, that is why they start smoking. And in their eyes, there are worse ways to break the law. It's relatively harmless, and it's all part of the 'screw everything my parents say' attitude that comes with puberty, and says nothing about their ability to drive.

Criminalize smoking, and you'll make it more attractive for teenagers.

[offtopic] An illustration: the oft criticized soft drugs policies in the Netherlands are actually very succesful. Even though smoking marijuana is legal here, our country has far and far less problems with drug addiction than the surrounding countries, especially France. Belgium, Germany and the UK are slowly moving towards a policy that is more like the Dutch model. [/offtopic]

If I stab someone, the police are going to stick me in jail. That is SO TOTALLY NOT FAIR. Putting me in jail takes away like sooo many rights. I can't go to the mall, I can't watch what I want on TV, I can't smoke pot, I can't have sex (with ladies), and I can't even get my daily caramel frappaccino from Starbucks®! WTF does taking away my coffee have to do with stabbing someone? Why can't they just take my knife away and hope I won't do it again? JESUS, it's SO UNFAIR.

The Dutch don't count.


Smoking says PLENTY about your level of responsibility.

That's not essentially true for the UK considering we just banned public smoking on the north side of the border. You're not even allowed to smoke under a bus shelter.

Maybe we should take away penises from people who don't use condoms.

If the troubled teen is caught driving without a license, he/she can say goodbye to driving for a long time. If he/she wants to commit more crimes, then I guess simply the kid is too dense in the head to think and stop.



Now, putting a kid into a detention center is pretty extreme as you said, but also seriously over the top. I mean, that's like completely changing a kid's daily life. Teenagers don't need a car to continue with their day, but throwing him into a facility for their whole day just because of smoking violations is quite damaging. This policy isn't the police "flaying wildly" because there really aren't many clear alternatives. You can't go soft on repeat teenage offenders but you can't be so drastic toward smoking law issues, like your detention-center idea. There isn't much ground inbetween.

Because there are no good alternatives, all that is left is extreme measures to prevent underage smoking. I think taking away a license is extreme. Not as extreme as a detention center, which would realisticly be somewhere on the other end of the spectrum, but far more effective. I think that taking away a license would only be as effective as the teenager wanted it to be. Does anyone know of any cities trying anything else that falls somewhere in between?

Lets think about which is less retarded.


On one hand taking away a stupid person's license;

They aren't congesting roads
It isn't costing me money if they can't drive
They're being forced to live with thier dumb mistakes
They're being taught the difference between rights and privelages


On the other hand sending someone to a detention center;

Jacks up my taxes, no thanks
Doesn't teach anyone dick (Trust me, I've been there)
Program ends when they turn 18, they'll go back to doing what they were doing to begin with. Atleast losing their license doesn't cost me any money and is ALOT less stupid.

Extreme? Cmon, like said before, this is for repeat offenders of smoking crimes. If you lose your license because you were caught smoking once, that would be extreme. If you were caught a second time, that would still be considered an unfit punishment. But after various times, enough is enough and the stakes should go higher.

Of course, it would be "effective as the teenager wanted it to be." People cope with punishment differently. But punishment should happen nonetheless. Obviously he/she doesn't care about the consequences due to the fact that the kid does the same crime over and over. Prehaps this policy is a good attempt to put some sense into the offending teenager.

Well, I live in a city with 1 million+ people and we have next to NO public transportation.. besides COTA bus, and they just lost a bunch of routes. For people to get around here, you need to drive.

That's the parents job...

Well, the parents fail and the kid is still doing repeat violations in public. Time to put some authority over the teenager's public actions.

i wagged english the other day because i needed to work with my drama group.
and my year co-ordinator has taken away my privilege to leave home early when i dont have classes. i am not going to wag again any time soon.

if i wag again he is going to take away my privilege to go to the end of year formal and a reference for my cv.
so i am really not going to wag again.

i think this shows how in this case unrelated punishment does work if it is something that is important to you that is taken away. albeit leaving school early and wagging are related but the other punishments arent.

if you want a formula for it:

YxD = 'LRP'

Y=you
D=disobey
LRP=less related punishments

the more you disobey the less related punishments get.

p.s. formula not to be taken seriously