I drink and I smoke, but I also think it’s not a good idea to get children used to those things.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a “one size fits all solution”. When I was a kid, I had the candy cigarettes, champagne bottles, cap-guns to play " cops and robbers", and bb-guns to “shoot things” (trash usually)
As an adult, I don’t smoke, I’ll have a beer once a month or less, and I haven’t robbed any banks nor go hunting. Mainly because, as an adult, I’m not interested in those things.
However, as a child, these were tools to pretend and often pretending involves replicating your environment. I definitely grew-up in a rural area, but on (80-90s) television when everyone is smoking and drinking, your relatives smoke and drink - it’s normalized.
I would argue that the social shift towards no smoking and less drinking for adults, has a greater affect on children than a ban on stick shaped candy in a box.
(Now marketing vaping to young people with addictive “fun” chemical flavoring: that is evil and should be banned)
Unfortunately, there isn’t a “one size fits all solution”. When I was a kid, I had the candy cigarettes, champagne bottles, cap-guns to play " cops and robbers", and bb-guns to “shoot things” (trash usually)
As an adult, I don’t smoke, I’ll have a beer once a month or less, and I haven’t robbed any banks nor go hunting. Mainly because, as an adult, I’m not interested in those things.
However, as a child, these were tools to pretend and often pretending involves replicating your environment. I definitely grew-up in a rural area, but on (80-90s) television when everyone is smoking and drinking, your relatives smoke and drink - it’s normalized.
I would argue that the social shift towards no smoking and less drinking for adults, has a greater affect on children than a ban on stick shaped candy in a box.
(Now marketing vaping to young people with addictive “fun” chemical flavoring: that is evil and should be banned)
edit: fixed a couple of words