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What you should know about the sweeping smoking laws in California.

'We're going to reduce health care costs and save lives.'

Hey, people smoke. And quitting is hard.

I am not about to shame anyone who lights up. As most smokers know all too well, it's a ridiculously hard habit to kick — and even just cutting back a bit can be a major headache (literally).

That's why expansive new measures in California to stop would-be young smokers from ever lighting up in the first place is an incredibly welcome change.

Photo by Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images.

In large part to keep its young people healthier, California has passed sweeping new regulations on tobacco.

The state's decision to up the legal smoking age is probably the most game-changing of the new measures, which were signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown on May 4, 2016.

With an exception for active duty military members, people in the state of California must now be at least 21 years old to buy tobacco products.

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.

"What this means for California is now we can know that our youth are less likely to be addicted to this horrible drug of tobacco," State Sen. Ed Hernandez said of the new age requirements. "There's going to be less addiction to tobacco, [and] we're going to reduce health care costs and save lives."

Another big change these regulations have introduced is in regards to e-cigarettes — which are now banned in all the same spots as traditional cigarettes, including schools, restaurants, and hospitals, NPR reported.

Why the stricter regulations on e-cigs? According to Stanton Glant, director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at University of California, San Francisco, e-cigarettes still pose a threat to public health — even if they're not as harmful as their traditional cigarette counterparts.

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.

"Exposing the developing brain to nicotine, which is in both e-cigarettes and conventional cigarettes, physically changes the brain," he said. "That's why the younger someone starts to smoke, the more addicted they tend to get ... and the harder time they have stopping."

The safety of e-cigarettes has caught the attention of the federal government too. Just today, the FDA announced a ban on sales to those under 18 years old, citing the health of young Americans as reason for the change.

Although the new measures in California are being applauded by major health organizations, not everyone's on board. The Smoke-Free Alternatives Trade Association, for instance, claimed the big move on e-cigarettes is "a step backward" for California, seeing as some vapor products are tobacco-free and, thus, shouldn't be a health concern.

The new measures in California coincide with a growing consensus across the U.S.: Cigarettes are, slowly but surely, on their way out.

In the 1960s, more than 40% of American adults were cigarette smokers, according to the CDC. That figure has fallen substantially throughout the last several decades, standing at about 17% in 2014. (Heck, more college students smoked marijuana than cigarettes for the first time ever last year.)

Photo by Chris Roussakis/AFP/Getty Images.

As research has continued to point to cigarettes as a major cause of death in the U.S., state and local laws have cracked down on their use.

Although Hawaii beat California to increasing its legal smoking age (the Aloha State did so this past January), more than 100 cities — including New York, Boston, and San Francisco — have passed laws requiring tobacco users be at least 21 years old.

So, yes, people smoke. And, yes, quitting is hard. But smoking kills. And the more young people these laws prevent from getting hooked, the better.

This week marked a major victory in keeping young people healthier, Hernandez said. Hopefully, the rest of the country will follow California and Hawaii's leads.

"Today was an enormous victory for not only this generation, but also for many generations to come who will not suffer the deadly impacts of tobacco."

Joy

'90s kid shares the 10 lies that everyone's parent told them

"Don't swallow that gum. If you do, it'll take 7 years to come out."

via 90sKid4lyfe/TikTok (used with permission)

90sKidforLife shares 10 lies everyone's parents told in the era.


Children believe everything their parents tell them. So when parents lie to prevent their kids to stop them from doing something dumb, the mistruth can take on a life of its own. The lie can get passed on from generation to generation until it becomes a zombie lie that has a life of its own.

Justin, known as 90sKid4Lyfe on TikTok and Instagram, put together a list of 10 lies that parents told their kids in the ‘90s, and the Gen X kids in the comments thought it was spot on.

“Why was I told EVERY ONE of these?” Brittany, the most popular commenter, wrote. “I heard all of these plus the classic ‘If you keep making that face, it will get stuck like that,’” Amanda added. After just four days of being posted, it has already been seen 250,000 times.

Parents were always lying #90s #90skids #parenting

@90skid4lyfe

Parents were always lying #90s #90skids #parenting

Here are Justin’s 10 lies '90s parents told their kids:

1. "You can't drink coffee. It'll stunt your growth."

2. "If you pee in the pool, it's gonna turn blue."

3. "Chocolate milk comes from brown cows."

4. "If you eat those watermelon seeds, you'll grow a watermelon in your stomach."

5. "Don't swallow that gum. If you do, it'll take 7 years to come out."

6. "I told you we can't drive with the interior light on. ... It's illegal."

7. "Sitting that close to the TV is going to ruin your vision."

8. "If you keep cracking your knuckles, you're gonna get arthritis."

8. "You just ate, you gotta wait 30 minutes before you can swim."

10. "If you get a tattoo, you won't find a job."


This article originally appeared on 4.26.24

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Remember when 'Cosmos' host Carl Sagan debunked flat Earthers with a piece of cardboard?

The science doesn't lie.

via YouTube

Over the past few years, there has been a growing number of people who believe the Earth is flat. A recent YouGov survey of more than 8,000 Americans found that as many as one in six are "not entirely certain the world is round."

Maybe there wouldn't be so much scientific illiteracy in this world if we still had Carl Sagan around.

Sagan hosted the original version of TV's "Cosmos" in 1980. It would be revived in 2014 with astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson at the helm.

In the first episode of "Cosmos," Sagan easily proved the Earth was a sphere using a piece of cardboard, some sticks, and the work of an ancient Libyan-Greek scholar, Eratosthenes.

Carl Sagan explains how Eratostenes knows the earth is curvewww.youtube.com

"How could it be, that at the same moment, a stick in Syene would cast no shadow and a stick in Alexandria, 800 km to the north, would cast a very definite shadow? Sagan asked.

"The only answer was that the surface of the Earth is curved," he added. "Not only that but the greater the curvature, the bigger the difference in the length of the shadows."

Considering the distance between the two cities and the lengths of the shadows they produced, Eratosthenes was able to determine that the Earth had a seven-degree curve. He used that calculation to speculate the Earth was 25,000 miles in circumference.

These days we know that the earth is 24,860 in circumference, so Eratosthenes was 140 miles off, not bad for over 2,000 years ago.


This article originally appeared on 7.22.20

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science
Family

Mom took heat for cleaning her teen's bedroom. Her response was a lesson in grace.

She won the #CleanTok controversy.

@organizedchaos4/TikTok

"It costs you nothing, and it creates this ripple effect of kindness."

The corner of the internet devoted to grime and muck being scrubbed away to oh-so satisfying perfection, otherwise known as #CleanTok, is mostly wholesome, cathartic fun. But every once in a while, controversy comes in.

For a mom named Audrey (who clearly has a passion for cleaning hacks, given her TikTok handle of @organizedchaos4), that moment came after she filmed herself doing a deep clean on her 12-year-old daughter’s room. Several people chimed in to accuse her of spoiling her kid, essentially.

Granted, Audrey admitted that she had posted the video “hoping that the trolls would get those thumbs a-movin’.” So when they did indeed come after her, she was ready.

“I surprised my daughter by cleaning her room for her. She's been getting herself up for 6 a.m. practices, she gets herself to school, she's out of the house before the rest of us have even woken up,” Audrey says in the clip.

“Keep in mind she's 12. In return for all that she's been doing, I thought it would be a nice treat if I just did a quick speed clean of her room. It was no big deal.”

Audrey goes on to say that the point of her follow-up video was to reiterate the importance of “extending grace.”


@organizedchaos4 When we throw empathy out the window, we throw grace out the window. If you saw the video and your first reaction was to say, “why isn’t she doing it herself?” Ask yourself, “have I EVER left a room messy because I was overwhelmed, tired, busy?” If so, then you are in no position to judge a child for the same thing. #grace #kindness #help #parenting #cleaning #kids #mom ♬ original sound - Organized Chaos | Audrey


That's what I did for my daughter. She had fallen behind on her room and I helped her.,” she says. “It costs you nothing, and it creates this ripple effect of kindness. We all have setbacks, we all have failures, we all make mistakes and if you say you don't you're lying. By extending grace we are spreading kindness, we are spreading compassion. If you can't extend grace to your own children then there's no way you're going to extend it to anyone else in the world and that's a scary world to live in.”

Audrey then argues that being kind to others often makes it “easier” to be kind to ourselves, which is “vital for our mental health.”

She then concludes, “so if you watched the video yesterday or you're watching this one today and you're thinking negative thoughts, ask yourself, ‘Am I quick to judge, be resentful, be negative or am I quick to extend grace or ask yourself have I ever stumbled and wish grace had been extended to me?’”

Down in the comments, we see that Audreynis certainly not alone in her thinking.

“Kindness costs nothing and provides everything,” one person wrote.

“This will only inspire your daughter to keep working hard and give back when she has a chance to, and know she can rely on you when she struggles,” added another.

Several other moms even chimed in about doing something similar for their kids.

“Exactly I did the same thing for my 23-year-old daughter who works full-time and is a full-time college student. She’s 100% independent. I just want to take some off stress off her plate,” one mom shared

Another said, “I do this for my daughter still, and it's her house.”

As with all things in parenting, balance is key. Of course we don’t want to instill laziness, but at the same time, kids can’t be expected to overachieve in all areas, at all times. Adults can’t even manage this without a little help. Sounds like this is truly a case of a good kid acting as responsibly as humanly possible, and a mom just wanting to help out where she can, all why'll teaching her the world can be a safe place. Hard to see anything wrong with that.

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Popular

An adorable grandma casually came out to her granddaughter while talking about relationships

It's never too late.

via wap rem x / Twitter

As society has become more accepting of LGBTQ people, the average age people come out of the closet has dropped significantly, from 37 among those in their 60s to 21 for those in their 30s.

However, many people, especially those who are older, are never able to come out because of societal or familial pressures.

An adorable new video that went viral on TikTok shows it's never too late to be your true self. A woman named Aimee was having a conversation with her grandmother — who she assumed was straight — when she admitted to being attracted to women.

Aimee thought it was so important that she had to capture the conversation on video.

Aimee wanted to know if it was just a sisterly love or sexual attraction. "Do you like prefer women's bodies?" Aimee asked.

"I think so, yeah" the grandmother answered. "I think boobs are nice. I think the penis, not that keen on it," she said with a grimace.

Aimee asked her grandmother what age the perfect woman would be and she said, "late 60s," and Aimee jokingly called her a "cougar."

"I just like women anyhow," the grandma said. "I've never liked men that much."

However, Aimee's grandma isn't quite ready to hit the dating scene yet. "At the moment Aimee, all I want to do is survive," she admitted.


This article originally appeared on 9.19.20

LGBTQ
Culture

People in the '90s and early 2000s trying to explain the internet is pure comedy gold

Some were hilariously wrong, but David Bowie's was so spot on it’s almost scary.

Matthew Ball/Twitter

Some in the late '90s and early '00s thought the internet was an overhyped idea doomed to fizzle.

Those of us who are old enough to remember the world before we became completely dependent on the internet could never have predicted what life would be like now. Some of the things the internet has enabled us to do—wireless video chats with friends halfway around the globe, ordering food to be delivered to our door at the click of a few buttons, virtual support groups for every possible interest or ailment—were the stuff of imaginary, far-futuristic worlds, surely not realistic to expect in our lifetimes. (I mean, I figured we'd have flying cars before we'd have computers we could fit in our pockets, yet here we are.)

The 1990s were this weird in-between phase where the tech geeks were all about the .com world and tech-reluctant normies were all, "Gretchen, stop trying to make the internet happen. It's not going to happen." Once the internet started becoming popular, some people did try to predict how it would all turn out.

Some predictions were wrong. Ridiculously, hilariously wrong. And on the flip side, David Bowie, in his apparently infinite wisdom, was so spot on it's almost scary.

Let's look at a prediction that turned out to be embarrassingly off-base. Former Head of Strategy at Amazon Studios Matthew Ball shared a clip from the Daily Mail newspaper in the year 2000 with the headline "Internet 'may be just a passing fad as millions give up on it.'"

"Researchers found that millions were turning their back on the world wide web, frustrated by its limitations and unwilling to pay high access charges," it reads.

"They say that e-mail, far from replacing other forms of communication, is adding to an overload of information."

(Go ahead and pause for maniacal laughter here.)

"Many teenagers are using the internet less now than previously, they conclude, and the future of online shopping is limited."

Ah, the adorable, pre-Amazon naivete.

Even a counter to that piece written by one Jane Wakefield a few days later had some hilarious lines in it. While urging not to throw out the the baby internet with the bathwater, Wakefield wrote, "It should come as no surprise to us that people are failing to see the point of the Internet. If you don't need access to a huge online encyclopaedia, if you don't fancy trying to buy a cheapish CD online, if you don't enjoy watching jerky videos of hardcore porn, then you might be right to question why you need a Net connection. Unlike TV (how many times have you heard the phrase "former TV watcher") the Internet is still dispensable.

Except of course for email."

BWAAHAAHHAAA. That's right. The only indispensable part of the web in 2000 was e-mail, which in some ways feels like the most archaic part of the internet now. Too funny.

David Bowie, on the other hand, predicted the impact the internet would have on society in 1999 and totally nailed it.

He was so right in that we had barely seen the tip of the iceberg in 1999. He was also right in that the impact to society—both good and bad—was unimaginable. Exhilarating and terrifying. We're living that now.

"The context and state of content is going to be so different to anything that we can really envisage at the moment," he said. "Where the interplay between the user and the provider will be so in sympatico it's going to crush our ideas of what mediums are all about."

Whoa. That's some seriously prescient prognosticating there, Bowie. (He really did see what was coming. He even started his own internet service provider in 1998 while other musicians scoffed at the world wide web.)

Going back just a bit further, Matthew Ball also shared an op-ed from a 1995 Newsweek in which Clifford Stoll writes that he is "most uneasy about this trendy and oversold community" of the internet. Ball said it "reads exactly like Metaverse criticisms."

Indeed, Stoll basically describes our current living situation with "telecommuting workers, interactive libraries and multimedia classrooms…electronic town meetings and virtual communities" and more as if it were some kind of absurdity.

And maybe it is. After all, he accurately described the other part of our current living situation, which is that "Every voice can be heard cheaply and instantly. The result? Every voice is heard. The cacophony more closely resembles citizens band radio, complete with handles, harassment, and anonymous threats. When everyone shouts, few listen."

Wowsers. Yep. Good times.

So what did we learn here?

Don't underestimate the future of technology. And always listen to David Bowie. The end.


This article originally appeared on 12.22.21

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