Once again the government has recognized what is obviously a problem in the UK and dealt with it in what is possibly the most illogical manner. Raising the legal age to buy cigarettes from 16 to 18 in a bid to stop teenagers smoking is far from their brightest move yet.
Its hard to decipher whether our MP's merely want to be seen as proactive (with as little effort as possible) or whether they are in fact so completely oblivious of teenage culture that they really believe teenagers will stop smoking just because the age restrictions have changed.
I am not for a minute saying that age restrictions have no effect on the amount of teenage smokers, infact I believe the very opposite, but the governments approach, in my opinion, is coming from the totally wrong angle. Far from decreasing the amount of smokers it will only increase the amount of people doing it illegally.
What the government seem to be missing, or ignoring, is the truth about why most kids start smoking. Contrary to popular belief kids don't really think smoking itself is cool, the attraction truly lies in the age restriction and the thrill of illegal comsumption. Surely it wouldn't take much investigation to realise that barely anyone starts smoking after they are legally allowed to do so.
Most teenagers long for adulthood and crave the respect of their older peers. One obvious way to earn this respect is to look and act older than they are. Age restrictions on specific products only encourages the younger generation to obtain them in order to look older.
Perhaps it would be too brave a suggestion, but if there were no restrictions at all perhaps an 11 yr old wouldn't be so attracted so something kids half there age could have???
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I like the argument in this post - I think you put your point across well and you write in a nice, conversational way - it works well on a blog. What you need to do now is add links - to the news story that you're reacting to, to other sources that might back up your argument. You could also try adding visuals too. You also need to check your writing for mistakes - there are a few detail errors here that could be fixed. Remember that you can edit posts and correct them after they've been published.
I like the Vicky watch post too. For the assessment blog, remember to work with the Blogger platform - try to personalise it by adding lists of useful links, news feeds, info and pictures. People need to understand what it's about as soon as they arrive at the page. Also think about how to write with links - try to research online and find material you can link to as part of your posts and the arguments you make.
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