Should the smoking age and drinking age be raised in the UK?
Raising the legal age won’t stop people from smoking and drinking to if they want. In school, at age 12 people would smoke and drink and teens still do that today so no matter how high you raise it, it isn’t going to make people stop, if anything more a lot of people would do this more. The drinking age shouldn’t be 25. I think that it’s ridculous that it’s 21 in America. Just beacause there is a small percentage of people that are stupid with drink, doesn’t mean that everyone should suffer. People are married by 25 nowadays and have children of their own, they shouldn’t be treated like children themselves. Imagine not being able to drink on your wedding day. 18 year olds are responsible enough to decide if they want to smoke. They’re not kids, they’re young adults and the more you treat them like children, the more people will revbel. Despite popular belief teenagers can actually be sensible when trusted. The more restrictions you put on them, the more they rebel. Media have focused t
I believe we should have one age for everything and at that age a person becomes a citizen with all the rights and responsibilities of a citizen. To pay tax, to vote, to marry, to sign a contract, to have sex, to drink, to smoke, to have a driving licence, to own property etc. At that age, however, the person would be responsible for all their action and be treated like an adult. The problem with this is that everyone matures at different rates and whilst one person may be very emotionally mature at 16, another might not until into their twenties. This is where education could play a role. The ‘nanny state’ in Britain has gone too far – when it rains there are announcements at railway stations telling you the platform might be wet; cups of coffee have a warning that they may be hot. At what stage do you have to say – STOP! We will give you the information and you make the decision. Of course wrong decisions will be made but that is how one learns; how many people have never made a mist
