On Wed, Sep 18, 2013 at 07:05:55AM -0700, Rick Moen wrote:
Used to be, I would absolve tobacco smokers of the assumption of idiocy if they were old enough that they might have started before the Surgeon General's Report[1] in 1964, but few now qualify for that exemption.
i certainly hadn't read, and possibly hadn't even heard of, the US Surgeon General's Report when i started smoking at the age of ~11 in ~1978. i was aware that "smoking was bad" but only because it was something that kids weren't allowed to do. which, of course, made it desirable ... like sneaking a beer at a bbq or party. and buying cigarettes was trivially easy - back then it wasn't even illegal to sell to kids and it wasn't at all uncommon for parents to send their kids to the local milkbar for "bread and milk and get me some smokes. get whatever you want for yourself with the change". certainly much easier to buy smokes than alcohol. these days, it's illegal and heavily fined. and i don't think most parents even let their kids go outside, let alone send them to the shop (or make them do any chores). craig -- craig sanders <cas@taz.net.au>