The Learning Teacher

I was at a local supermarket buy some wine for the festive season and could not help noticing a young boy holding a cheap bottle of brandy behind me.

I turned to him and told him that he was under-aged and he should not be buying alcohol. He was quick to respond: Buying for my elder brother. To which I replied, “You should ask him to buy it himself”.

As I was leaving the counter, the boy took his place at the payment counter. The cashier refused to accept the boy’s money and turned him away. I was pleased that this cashier had said no. I sincerely hoped that he did it because it is illegal to sell alcohol and cigarettes to those below 18 years of age and not because he had heard what I had said and feared that I might complain to the management.

The incident also got me thinking about how children and teenagers get access to cigarettes if it is not to be sold to anyone below the age of 18!!! How do all the vendors get away with it? Smoking kills and this is flashed on all the cigarette boxes!!! Still, our shopkeepers and all kinds of vendors sell them freely to whoever chooses to buy. Money talks!

Should the government now start arresting the young smokers and those who sell the cigarettes? We seem to be more caught up with illegal DVDs. Shouldn’t the law apply to all these offenders - cigarette, alcohol and illegal DVDs sellers?

Our education system seems to have had limited success in discouraging the young from smoking. The fear is that the early smoking habits could lead to other more harmful habits like taking recreational and hard drugs.

There are more newspaper articles about arresting people in possession of a rather benign illegal DVD than about arresting those who sell harmful cigarettes to under-aged smokers or the under-aged smokers themselves.

Is society a little too complacent about young people smoking cigarettes because it has become common place and society does not worry about the breaking of the law by the cigarette vendors?