Hi, I don't know if this is correct but one of my old French teachers told me tobacco is sold to young teenagers in France. I saw a Czech guy who looked maybe 17-18 in the airport who had a cigarette lighter in his pocket which is really strange since flammable things aren't allowed to be taken onto the plane, is it a new trend to teenagers in the Czech Republic now or something? To have fake, plastic cigarette lighters?....I would also like to know if a lot of male teenagers smoke there and that it is the same story with France, that tobacco can be sold to teens from the age of 15. Thank you for anyone who can help.
Tobacco is allowed to be sold to people aged 18 and more. Many youngsters do smoke though, some are even less then 15. Young girls smoke even more than boys, if I remember correctly. I have no knowledge about fake lighters - I suppose it was a real one, the guy might have been waiting for someone or so.
You really do get a lot of Czech boys in your area. Do they wear badges to say they are Czech because you dont seem to talk with them so i just wondered how you know. What part of enzed are you from?
Good lord, they are among the worse smokers, drinkers and drug users in Europe according to a new survey. The leagal age is 18, but it is completely unenforced for cigarettes and alcohol
Yes, unfortunately I have been around for 10 months and have seen MANY very young teens smoking. For few months I had business in Katerinska ul. and every noon have seen large groups of smoking kids congregating around the school. Almost every morning I was getting on street car U krizovniku, right in the front of the Balet Conservatory and that was the saddest part of my day to see beautiful young future dancers coming to main entrance and standing there smoking first thing in the morning. Even though Czechs progressed with times and many are aware of dangers of smoking, and they have huge sighns on cigaret packages and also sighns above display of cigaretes, there are quite a few non smoking places, it is mostly higher educated business crowd who is using their brains who are not smoking....as for kids and old folks it didnt change. I am still puzzled by the fact that those youngsters want to be so hip and modern and still smoke, while Western world changed so much in this and basically white trash and write offs are still smoking..... I am speaking from Canada, where in 70's we used to stroll down supermarket ails smoking, smoke in five last rows of movie theatre and EVERYBODY smoke, even young mothers with babies. Now, I dont know one single person from my wide social circle who would smoke.
Sh sh... The (other than alcohol and nicotine) drug numbers are not that bad. Many people smoke marijuana, but quite a small number uses synthetic drugs.
I think, given that most everyone in this world is terrified of radioactivity, that if governments and health agencies around the world would start emphasizing the huge radiation doses tobacco smoke gives (estimated as that of 300-2000 chest x-rays), 90% of smokers in the world would stop smoking.
you make it sounds like it's a bad thing... the smoking and drinking(eg: slivovice, becherovka and absinth) part is all just a part of the czech culture. Just like smazeny syr, krokety and svickova.
Well it certainly cant be described as a good thing...can it? And its not really a culture issue....many people from many different countries have smoked...but then when they realise how anti social and damaging it is, they give up. My teachers taught me that it was a British invention, (but they would cos they were British and want to magnanify the empire), so perhaps the British could say its a culture thing but they are giving up in droves. Perhaps the culture argument is a 'smoke' screen. (Clever that isn't it?)
So are these also parts of Czech culture: lung disease, lung cancer, liver disease ... If smoking is part of any culture, it's part of American culture, as that's where it originated. And Europeans say that America has no culture ... :wink:
Ahhh smazeny syr, the good stuff junk food dreams are made of. I missed it so much untill recently our local Wal Mart began to carry the closest thing to the actual cheese used in making these wonderful delights. Now I have it every chance I get.
Maybe it's different in the Czech Republic but in most parts of the world they don't allow lighters which can immediately start a fire and blow the plane up, on an aircraft. Simple safety procedure. If lighters were allowed on planes, terrorist attacks would be very often. And as you say, they 'are' allowed lighters on passenger planes e.t.c Boeing 747's, why would they allow objects that could start a fire and put an end to every passengers life and not allow smoking on planes? That's because smoking is basically fire and fire is not allowed on planes. It's a simple safety procedure. You can't take sharp objects or flammable objects onto a plane with you.
Smoking is not allowed primarily because it annoys other passengers, not because it is dangerous. You can not blow up plane with a cigarette lighter, you would at least need a bottle of petrol to create large enough startup fire. There is nothing easier that to take a box of matches with you in your pocket - metal detector does not find it. But there are more effective ways to make a terrorist attack.
Alot of things people tend to forget about the hijackers of 9-11 is one simple fact. They took over the plane with $1.50 boxcutters they probably picked up at Wal-Mart and an ability to cause fear. Not nail clippers and fingernail files. When it comes down to it at the end of it all though the laws, rules and regulations won't be followed by terrorists, that inted to cause harm or death anyway. The reason for the lighters is a result of the shoe bomber. Sooner or later the only thing they will allow on the plane is your own person wrapped in the tightest spandex imaginable. All of course only after a complete BC search. Untill the price of gas went up I was content just to drive my car. At least then I wouldn't have to rely on the honesty of the luggage searchers with my unlocked and unsecured baggage.
Hmm..I don't think so, because if someone took a lighter onto a plane and they used it and something set on fire inside it would affect the plane, fires can spread very quickly within a couple of minutes. Also, petrol? I thought planes were full up with petrol..or maybe I was just wrong that planes don't have any petrol in them when they fly?
Within a couple of minutes, yes. A cigarette lighter or box of matches just are not powerful enough to start a fire that the crew or other passengers would not extinquish within seconds. There is no petrol in the cabin. It is inside the wings and in the lower parts of the plane, places where you can hardly get as a passenger.
There used to be an old Czech saying:- "That Czechs would rather eat and drink too much than too little!!" Although, I took the positive meaning of that saying, namely that Czechs enjoy their food and drink, and not necessarily that they eat and drink in excess. Times must have changed regarding smoking, as I can remember in the early seventies there were "no smoking" signs even in local parks!!
Yes, within 2 minutes if a fire started it could spread like wild fire. You really think they would risk hundreds of lives just so a passenger could take a lighter onto a plane? Now would that really be necessary? I don't know about Europe including the Czech Republic but here in New Zealand, Australia, Korea...America basically all of the world, we have posters specificly saying what items are not to be taken on hand or in luggage. And lighters just happen to be one of them.
