How old would your children need to be before you started buying their cigarettes?

What's a good reason? I don't smoke and neither did/do my siblings - and we were raised in a home where both my parents smoked like smokestacks. My mom developed heart trouble (worsened by diabetes) and my dad died of a sudden heart attack right in the hospital. Neither of the members of the second generation (my niece and nephew, both in their early twenties) do, either. The only one who does is my sister-in-law - and she admitted to my brother that she began at the age of 12.

@MaryJanine I should have probably begun by saying that I do smoke (I enjoy it and will never quit) as does most of my family. What I would consider to be a good reason for a child to want to smoke: being curious as to why people choose to do it if it is so bad, wondering how it tastes...

Kids who start it for the first time usually get sick or dizzy (so I heard). I never liked the smell - both my parents smoked Camels, (and are they STRONG) and I think the boys didn't either.

@MaryJanine Yes, Camels are pretty strong; I can't imagine how anyone could start with Camels. When I started smoking (I was 13) I didn't get sick, did feel a little dizzy though; but I kind of enjoyed that...

Mom's not here anymore, so I can't ask her if she ever smoked another brand and then switched to Camels. I know back in the good old days, when kids were allowed to get cigarettes for their parents with a note, Mom would send us to the store to get an ingredient for dinnertime with the note saying, "(Child's name) is permitted to buy cigarettes for me" and sign it. But a few times, my sister came home with another brand or two, and Mom would say, "I don't want those. I want Camels!" And she would send her back to get the right things. I don't remember when they made it the law that you couldn't get the kids to do that any longer, but I remember carrying that note a few times myself.

@MaryJanine From what I understand kids being able buy cigarettes with a signed parents' note was never a law, although considering how laws have varied from one place to another with regard to smoking over the years (and still today) it is certainly possible that was a law in some location(s). Before there were minimum age to purchase laws some stores required the note as a way to not get on the bad side of parents who didn't want their kids to smoke. Until relatively recently (the past 20 years give or take), most of the minimum age to purchase laws weren't enforced; so stores used the parents' note as a way to comply with the law most of the time, but still sell to kids whose parents wanted them to buy.

I evaded the minimum age to buy laws completely by getting my cigarettes (and cigarettes for a number of friends) from cigarette vending machines

I don't think it was an actual LAW. I just remember there were a lot of stores or gas stations, or both, when I was growing up, and they sold you cigarettes for a parent (!) with presentation of a note. One of these was a little old lady that had one of those newsstands-inside-a-story (you know the kind, the ones with candy counters and cigarette counters behind the register.) She was very strict about selling these last, note or no note, to kids that were ALWAYS in her store (we often bought the early Sunday edition of the daily paper there to check the ads out). There were also two gas stations who wanted to see and read the note before they would hand over the merchandise. There was also a bar on the near corner next to the old lady's store, but they chased kids out of there. They had a automatic machine just inside the place of business.