New Teenage Tobacco Possession Bill Needs To Die
Rep. Michael Ramone submitted HB 36 that will make it unlawful for those under 18 to possess, use or consume tobacco. Though doubtful this law will curtail smoking, it will make it easier to for teenagers’ to obtain a criminal record. So it has that going for it.
For a bill with limited benefit but drastic consequences, it should die in committee. Also, if anyone thinks that this law would be enforced equitably along racial lines, they haven’t been paying attention.
It should not be surprising that all the sponsors of this legislation are Republicans. On a side note, I thought Republicans hated useless laws and regulations.
This reminds me of the famed and horrible “Broken Windows” policing that hands out records to thousands of young minorities and in the process makes them unemployable. Really, what’s the goal here other than to torment kids and show them who’s boss? Like so many great efforts from Dover this law will be used to screw a few into the ground while proclaiming “Look! We’re doing something!”.
Such crap. What piece of shit “think tank” is feeding this nonsense to our brain dead GOP legislators? The “For Profit Prisons Association” or something equally malevolent.
Mike Ramone is usually a moderate (beyond being yoked to the DE Charter School Network). This is shocking. Awful.
Gotta love those small-gummint conservatives. Only the helpful portions of government should be small, it turns out. If it involves the police — who are notorious for unequal application of government power — they like big government.
If only conservatives understood the concept of hypocrisy.
Underage tobacco possession would presumably give police vast new opportunities to stop-and-frisk kids for guns. I admit to having mixed feelings about that.
It would also open up a whole new lucrative target for civil forfeitures, reason enough to deep-six this crap.
Spoke to Ramone today at leg hall – he is circulating a substitute for HB 36 that makes both minor possession and purchase of tobacco as civil offenses with a small educational (an hour-long video) requirement for first offense and some community service and more education for second offense.
That bill is not available yet electronically.
@Nancy: Thanks for the update.
Mike always means well, but he’s not a details guy.
Thanks Nancy for the update
This is my first visit to this site, I’m active with UUDAN working on Women’s Rights, and am very glad to see it. Will visit a lot. Today hewhoshallnotbenamed somehow gagged the EPA. How is that even possible? Isn’t that unAmerican?
Visit early and often–and comment!
@Nancy Willing-
Ask Ramone about that “mysterious” fire.
You know, the fire that wasn’t actually mysterious.