The reason "we", scratch that, the reason the state allows adults to drink and smoke is because adults have been known to fight back, sometimes quite effectively, when they feel like something is been "taken away" from them. The obvious example here is the rise of bootlegging during prohibition; all that did was empower the organized criminal class, rather than get the nation to realize the awesome benefits of being a sober working stiff. That's why contemporary Western states disincentivize harmful goods by taxation, and gradual, rather than total, prohibition.
Consuming liquor and tobacco are also traditional communal activities, dating from before the total enclosure of industrial civilization upon people's personal lives. Meaning, people would actually be inclined to fight for the right to carry on like they're used to. This is one of the greatest motivators ever; very much not the case with the more novel intoxicating substances, even where those might actually be less harmful than good old alcohol and nicotine.
I'm all for creating an environment that encourages people to make optimal choices about their own lives. Generally, we do not live in an environment that even makes that possible. Case in point, why would one be driven to apply the toxic skin creams in question, if they did not have toxic beauty standards imposed on them in the first place? How do "we protect the children" from those, when all over the world conformance with Adobe Photoshop's idea of the human form can directly determine the social market value of a human being?
The answer is, we have no idea - we're not even asking ourselves the questions that make sense, because "protecting the children" is a moral scam. A just society would protect the inexperienced and the powerless, regardless of age - and, conversely, acknowledge the personhood and autonomy of all citizens in accordance with their demonstrated degree of self-awareness, rather than determine their human rights by some involuntary biological marker. I don't know how that society would work in practice, I'm only here to remind you that instead we live in another kind of society - one that is based on the non-consensual extraction of human resources. Such a society has no incentive to "protect" most of anyone. All it needs is to raise obedient children into dependent adults. (It also needs a stable population of scapegoats - "juvenile delinquents" growing into "hardened criminals", who are to be blamed for all dysfunction.)
Minors are an oppressed minority. They are subjected to extensive brainwashing, and deprivations of liberty that society claims are "for their own good". These rather serve the preservation of power structures, which start with the oppressor's drive to forget their formerly oppressed status. Thus, the purpose of age verification can only ever be the violation of privacy and autonomy of all market participants; it will do absolutely nothing to prevent kids from emulating the harmful and unmoderated behaviors of the adults around them.
> The reason "we", scratch that, the reason the state allows adults to drink and smoke is because adults have been known to fight back, sometimes quite effectively, when they feel like something is been "taken away" from them.
Which is also the same reason adults are allowed to do all these other things, like buying toxic skin creams.
Strictly speaking, you got me there! Much like narcotic preparations, toxic cosmetics have been known throughout history - so both cases do boil down to the same dynamic after all. (Though there are interesting divergences e.g. in the gendered targeting of the products in question, or their application for altering the state of the self, vs. the perceptions of others, and so on. FWIW I consider both to be harmful and habit-forming; but a habit is a form of personality alteration that must be fairly reckoned with.)
My point is that fighting to get one's unhealthy "toys" back doesn't require any more maturity, self-reflection, or responsible decision-making, than that of a literal toddler. But neither does embodying a "rational economic agent", the very thing notionally expected of well-adjusted adults! This is a compound effect, eventually resulting in the present grossly miscalibrated governance model, where homegrown "growth hackers" run circles around the legislators.
Generously, "think of the children" can be seen as an escape hatch: reverting to some sort of universally shared value to prompt people to reflect on their present choices. Not very effectively, though: "Well I'm building a better future for my children, by selling all of this poison here to your children, what?" And, like one of the parent posters said, consumers don't just stop needing protection once they reach the age of majority. Clearly, we need better consumers.
Frankly, I've observed the exact opposite: Americans strongly tend toward the mandatorily pro-social, and it's their vernacular discourse which treats the social establishment as fundamentally well-intentioned and legitimate.
