Smoking is a really bad habit that engulfs millions of people each year and is killing many lives despite attempts by the government and individuals trying to stop it. Smoking is the cause of many cancers and causes permanent damage to the human body. So why don’t we change the legal age to have cigarettes? Sadly, this idea will not only work against itself but also against nature. First of all, one of the biggest facts of the natural world is survival of the fittest, so if there dying its natural selection taking its course. Also, the feeling of rebellion is one wanted by most older teens so pushing the age higher is probably going to make people want to have cigarettes more when they are teens anyway so why bother? Finally, there are several points that people bring up commonly that are untrue or simply unintelligent.
Argumentative essay: Should the smoking age be changed to 21?
The first and major reason why the smoking age shouldn’t be moved from 18 to 21 is that we have so many warning campaigns that they know the risks and its natural selection taking its course. Natural selection is a matter of life where only the fittest survive first penned by Charles Darwin in 1859. Basically, the strongest genes will survive like a giraffe’s long neck if there is a gene pool where they have shorter necks then they won’t be able to eat meaning they won’t be able to survive meaning the gene pool will die so the species will live on only with the strongest gene pool. How does this relate to smokers well their genes have probably substance use disorders or SUD’s. This gives people a highly addicted personality and is carried through genes. Smokers generally have weaker organs not just lungs meaning that if a smoker tries to have a baby their sexual reproduction organ is going to be damaged meaning that natural selection has taken its place stopping more people from getting addicted to drugs and smoking. Now it is possible to say that maybe there isn’t anything warning them so it isn’t natural selection its lack of knowledge. But there are countless campaigns saying that it is bad. That even when you buy a cigarette there are warnings on the packet so it is natural selection because it is killing off people who either can’t read or people who don’t believe in the facts that science is giving you. This is very similar to the anti-vaccine debate on natural selection. This has nothing to with the age change but changing it would be postponing natural selection but even if you did, they would still get them.
Another argument is as a teen you crave rebellion, mainly because one of the major parts of the brain is rebuilding and you crave to belong to a pack. So, if smoking seems cool and maybe might impress some girls then even with this pointless law in the first place it won’t reduce the number of people smoking. The part of the brain is the prefrontal cortex that is rebuilding so teenagers use the amygdala to make choices in life. The problem is this part of the brain makes many different things like emotions, impulses, aggression and instinctive behaviour. So, when a teen is making decisions. They are using this part of the brain basically meaning they are somewhat handicapped when making decisions because they are making choices on emotions, impulses, aggression and instinctive behaviour. Teens start to date in this period because it was instinct in history to start mating at this age. It also instinct to stay with the fittest to survive so if they are saying smoke to be cool so they can get the girls and be protected by the strong kids they will do it purely on instinctive behaviours. This means no matter that teens will start in adolescence no matter what you do so the ones that can really think through what they are doing when they smoke won't smoke. This means they have the toughest genes thus meaning the survival of the fittest. There are many pointlessly stupid arguments saying that we should move the smoking age up to 21 but this is purely idiotic.
Finally, there are many different arguments against this topic but they are all incorrect. One of the biggest arguments is that the stuff can kill you, which is exactly the same reason why we should keep it. So these people ignorant to the people showing its bad will die which is good because this is natural selection taking its course. The gene of not believing science and not looking at the signs will slowly die out meaning only the fittest survive. Another argument is that smoking is addictive and most smokers want to quit well that is natural selection because they continually ignore the signs so the gene of not paying attention to the signs and having an addictive mindset will go out. The final argument that they use incorrectly is that most smokers start in adolescence. So they don’t know the signs that would lead to natural selection aren’t there so it would be completely unfair. That they die because a parent did it so they got addicted but this is untrue if his parent was a smoker 2 things are highly likely:
The genes in the child are malformed because of smoking effects all of your systems and stop the reproductive system heaps so the child is going to have problems later in life anyway
Is that the smoker probably has a highly addictive mindset that might be passed on through the genes depending on the mother so the child was a ticking time bomb of when he will get addicted.
In conclusion, the legal age of smoking shouldn’t be changed to 21 from 18. Mainly you are stopping a huge natural process called natural selection that has nearly been wiped out because of modern medicine and other big steps of progression in science. Also, a teenager wants to feel rebellious so really all you are doing is making it more enticing for the younger generation than stopping it from harming the youth and postponing the inevitable truth of natural selection. Lastly, there are so many misconceptions about why smoking is bad but mostly we are stopping my first point of natural selection from happening. The age of smoking doesn’t need to be moved and should stay the 18 that it has been for many years.