Mark-AL says:

One part of me would like to legislate the smoking age in the US in order to discourage young kids from engaging in buying publicly until they’re 21, just as we do with alcohol. And probably for good reason. But then again, I realize all the implications of our kids’ at age 18 engaging in military exercises all over the world risking their health and well-being in the process. So I don’t think we have the right to limit their use of tobacco products at any age unless we limit our intervention in questionable conflicts around the world, which seems unlikely for many reasons. If they’re big enough to take a bullet, they’re big enough to engage in smoking, in my view. We can and should discourage smoking among our youth, for their own good, but it isn’t up to the government to legislate their lives. Man has come of age. I smoked when I was 13 to 15, behind the barns and in the fields–away from my parents and siblings. I was lucky that the habit didn’t stick with me. I was able to buy cigarettes at that age anywhere in town at that time where tobacco was sold (1 gas station, 1 general store, 1 hardware store). Those shopkeepers kept my secret. Had situations differed in that regard, I probably would never have been a kid-smoker even for a two year period, because my only mode of transportation in those days to get to the next town to try to buy cigarettes was a tractor or a mule. Neither was considered “cool”!