WI: Bill Clinton advocated raising the tobacco age to 21 in 1996

An increase in the minimum age for buy alcohol, and little growth in illegal sales (outside of adults buying for minors) is indicative of the lack of interest in creating a serious black market - harder drugs are far more profitable.
Moonshine is still a thing, to avoid paying taxes for unaged 'White' Whiskey

Running Tobacco and Booze also has lower penalties than running opiates
 

Marc

Donor
Moonshine is still a thing, to avoid paying taxes for unaged 'White' Whiskey

Running Tobacco and Booze also has lower penalties than running opiates

Very small thing with little effect on drinking habits of millions. Similarly raising taxes heavily on tobacco has caused little increase in a black market. If anything, the net effect has been to discourage starting and using cigarettes.

Overall, cigarette smoking among U.S. adults (aged ≥18 years) declined from 20.9 percent in 2005 to 15.5 percent in 2016.
Proven population-based interventions – including tobacco price increases, comprehensive smoke-free laws, anti-tobacco mass media campaigns, and barrier-free access to tobacco cessation counseling and medications – are critical to reduce cigarette smoking and smoking-related disease and death among U.S. adults, particularly among populations with the highest rates of use.

You really can change mass social behavior, if you start with the right motivations and the right tools.

Oh, the 18 year old argument? A reasonable one on the surface, predicated old enough on the die for your country but not old enough vote (I know, I know), and you could be executed as a minor (and boys were), but then why wait to 18? Historically most societies would identify 13+, without any serious problems. Age doesn't mark maturity - one of the reasons why the Founding fathers specify certain minimum ages for various Federal offices - 25 for the House, 30 for Senators and Presidents.
The point is that we have always been arbitrary, and making it harder for people to act unquestionably stupidly is actually a good thing that saves lives.
 
Similarly raising taxes heavily on tobacco has caused little increase in a black market.

In excess of 50% of the cigarettes sold in NYC are smuggled, which is quite a black market. In general, jurisdictions with high taxes do see black markets

Oh, the 18 year old argument? A reasonable one on the surface, predicated old enough on the die for your country but not old enough vote (I know, I know), and you could be executed as a minor (and boys were), but then why wait to 18?


If somebody is old/wise enough to decide for themselves whether they can drink/smoke, then they aren't old/wise enough to vote. Internationally, 18 as the age of majority is by far the most common and held by an absolute majority of countries.

Historically most societies would identify 13+, without any serious problems.

Even in pre-modern societies, regencies typically lasted until the crown prince/princess was between the ages of 16 and 18.

Age doesn't mark maturity - one of the reasons why the Founding fathers specify certain minimum ages for various Federal offices - 25 for the House, 30 for Senators and Presidents.

I agree that age doesn't perfectly predict maturity, but there is a strong correlation. Still, the ability to run for a particular office is quite a bit more limited than voting, negotiating contracts, etc.

making it harder for people to act unquestionably stupidly is actually a good thing that saves lives.

Absolutely disagree here. This, I think, is the fundamental disagreement: You place much less weight on respecting autonomy and individual choice, whereas I'm an old fashioned liberal who believes that maintaining personal autonomy as far as possible. Thus, this is just a recapitulation of the progressive/liberal split and the arguments between the two philosophical factions that's being going on for the past 150 years or so.

Still, this is venturing into current political arguments, so I will refrain from any further comments.
 
Short answer: No. The black market in cigarettes has been and still is really trivial - even with extremely high taxation, it never has become anything of note. The younger people start smoking, the higher the eventual death rate.
Raising the minimum age isn't prohibition, it's just reducing the number of people who will die from said drug, whether it's tobacco, or teenagers getting loaded on beer and driving, etc.
A short quote from the CDC:

Cigarette smoking is responsible for more than 480,000 deaths per year in the United States, including more than 41,000 deaths resulting from secondhand smoke exposure. This is about one in five deaths annually, or 1,300 deaths every day. On average, smokers die 10 years earlier than nonsmokers.

I think that increasing the smoking age would reduce deaths from smoking but the increase of the drinking age in the USA to 21 didn't reduce deaths from driving, read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Minimum_Drinking_Age_Act#Effects.
 
Deaths by smoking are directly from smoking. Meanwhile drunk driving desths are, obviously, because of driving drunk.
Deaths from DD are very obvious, and immediate. Smoking deaths are decades away, not counting the few who died smoking in bed from fire from the lit cig hitting the bedding
 
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