- 2 months ago
Remember when you could light up on an airplane or toss deadly lawn darts at a family BBQ? Join us as we count down our picks for popular 80s things that have since been outlawed! Our countdown includes indoor smoking, drinking at 18, asbestos, and more! Which of these banned items from the Reagan era do you think should make a comeback?
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00:00Most adults can remember when people used to smoke openly in public spaces, but just think, a 20-year-old has never seen it.
00:06Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for things that were popular in the 80s but have since been outlawed.
00:12There are decades of scientific peer-reviewed studies that make clear that lowering the legal drinking age will result in more deaths.
00:23Number 10, driving without seatbelts.
00:25These days, most people fasten their seatbelts as soon as they get in the car without even thinking about it.
00:30In the event of a crash, no matter how minor or serious, a seatbelt will help protect you.
00:35The seatbelt is your only restraint to keep you from flying out of the window.
00:38But U.S. law didn't require seatbelts in all vehicles until 1968, and they were optional to use for years after that.
00:45In 1984, New York became the first state to make seatbelt wearing mandatory, and other states gradually jumped on board over the next decade.
00:51People think that they're going to be harassed, and this is not our intent at all.
00:56Their intent, they say, is to save lives.
00:58Except that it is for New Hampshire.
01:00If you're 18 or older, or at least 57 inches tall, you still don't have to buckle up in the granite state.
01:05If you truly hate seatbelts, you can still legally ride in the bed of a pickup truck in many states.
01:09Florida law, what does it say?
01:10You can ride in it.
01:11But there are rules just like everything else.
01:13Number 9, MDMA.
01:15First synthesized in 1912, this drug was initially used in psychotherapy in the 1970s.
01:20Studies have shown that it can have beneficial effects for people suffering from PTSD and social anxiety.
01:25Well, a new study published in Nature Medicine shows that for people suffering with severe PTSD, the benefit of talk therapy could be greatly improved with an unlikely drug, MDMA.
01:37In the 1980s, MDMA became popular as a party drug.
01:41By the middle of the decade, it was in widespread use in many parts of the country.
01:44In 1985, the DEA suddenly decided to classify MDMA as a Schedule I drug, essentially making it illegal overnight.
01:52The Drug Enforcement Administration wants it control like heroin, a drug considered to have no medical use.
01:58Many psychiatrists fought the classification, arguing that MDMA had legitimate medical uses, but their concerns were dismissed.
02:04Today, the FDA allows research on MDMA, but your therapist still can't prescribe it for you.
02:09MDMA was a therapy drug before it became a party drug, and most people don't realize that.
02:14And we're trying to bring it back to being a therapy drug.
02:17Number 8. Lawn darts
02:19A heavy, sharp object that's meant to be thrown pointy end first? What could go wrong?
02:23The lawn dart game that Snow had purchased was supposed to be played this way.
02:27The darts tossed underhand into plastic rings on the grass.
02:30After a slew of injuries in 1970, the FDA classified lawn darts as a mechanical hazard,
02:35meaning they couldn't be marketed to children and had to carry strict warning labels.
02:39Consumer protection groups pressured the government to ban them outright, but they lost that fight.
02:43But because of pressure from the sporting goods industry, that ban was relaxed.
02:47The new law said the darts could be sold, but only in sporting goods departments as a game for adults.
02:54They could not be sold in toy stores or in toy departments, and the package had to carry a bold warning label.
03:01Then in 1987, a seven-year-old girl was killed by a lawn dart, and her father, David Snow, went on a crusade to get the deadly game outlawed.
03:08Throughout the 1980s, more than 6,000 people went to the ER due to lawn dart injuries, the vast majority of whom were kids.
03:15In December 1988, Snow accomplished his goal, and lawn darts were banned.
03:19Well, I got a bill in Congress, and I got it banned twice by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and a bill signed by President Reagan.
03:27Number seven, leaded gasoline.
03:29Tetraethyl lead was added to gasoline to improve vehicle performance and reduce engine wear starting in the 1920s.
03:34Well, leaded gasoline was introduced decades ago to enhance octane in gasoline for cars.
03:44But you've probably heard that lead is really bad for humans.
03:47Throughout most of the 20th century, all those cars full of people not wearing seatbelts were spewing a lot of it into the atmosphere.
03:53In 1973, there were over 200,000 tons of lead emitted from automobiles in the United States alone.
04:04In the mid-1970s, the U.S. started to phase out the use of leaded gas.
04:07Newer cars didn't need it, but many people kept using it because it was cheaper than unleaded.
04:12Amazingly, even though the dangers of lead exposure had been known for decades, leaded gas wasn't officially banned in America until 1996.
04:19The reason is simple, price. Unleaded means shelling out about a nickel a gallon more.
04:24Number six, chlorofluorocarbon.
04:26If you were an 80s kid, you probably remember hearing a lot about the ozone layer.
04:30It was rapidly depleting thanks to chemicals being dumped into the atmosphere.
04:34But the ozone layer has gotten thinner.
04:38Chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, are the primary culprits in ozone layer breakdown.
04:45That was bad news for life on Earth.
04:47One of the worst culprits was chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs.
04:50They were used in a number of household items like refrigerators, aerosol spray cans, and fire extinguishers.
04:56About 90% of CFCs currently in the atmosphere were emitted by industrialized countries in the northern hemisphere.
05:04And of course, 80s hairstyles required a lot of aerosol hairspray.
05:07Fortunately, in an amazing example of international cooperation, the world came together to create the Montreal Protocol in 1987.
05:14It required the phase-out of many of the pollutants causing ozone depletion, including most CFCs.
05:20If not for this major step, climate change would probably be a lot worse than it already is.
05:24Since then, the amount of chlorine and other ozone-depleting elements in the atmosphere have been falling.
05:31Number five, raw milk.
05:33Pasteurization, discovered by Louis Pasteur in the 1860s, has saved millions, if not billions, of lives.
05:39This was thanks to pasteurization, which Pasteur developed in 1864 to help wine and beer keep for longer.
05:47Pasteurization involves heating a liquid to around 160 degrees Fahrenheit for about 15 seconds,
05:52which kills most of the deadly microorganisms that thrive in milk and juice.
05:56It even increases the availability of some vitamins.
05:59It's a centuries-old process that heats up milk to kill off bacteria, like salmonella, listeria, or E. coli, then cools it back down.
06:06By the 1980s, about half of states required stores to sell only pasteurized milk.
06:11But raw milk was still pretty easy to obtain.
06:13In the mid-80s, consumer group Public Citizen began pushing for a federal ban,
06:17citing hundreds of illnesses and dozens of deaths linked to raw milk.
06:21In 1987, a federal court outlawed the interstate sale of raw milk,
06:25and now only a handful of states allow it in retail stores.
06:28And there's really no need to drink raw milk, because the pasteurization process does not take out the nutrients.
06:35Number 4. Joe Campbell
06:37The U.S. used to have a much more cavalier attitude towards smoking, especially teen smoking.
06:42In the 80s, many high schools still had designated smoking areas for students.
06:46Roughly 25% of high school students in Washington State smoked cigarettes.
06:51Now, by law, you have to be 18 to buy cigarettes.
06:54Teen smokers say stores don't always check ID.
06:57And candy cigarettes, which were often packaged exactly like the real thing, were popular with kids.
07:02But perhaps most shocking of all was the use of cartoon characters like Joe Campbell to market cigarettes.
07:07Tobacco companies claimed they weren't targeting children, but the evidence says otherwise.
07:11The tobacco company has been hooking young people for many years.
07:13It's an addictive product.
07:15And then they can't get off the product later.
07:16A 1991 study found that 90% of 6-year-old kids could identify Joe Campbell,
07:21the same number that recognized Mickey Mouse.
07:23The American Heart Association and other health groups urged the FTC to ban the leather-clad mascot.
07:28But it took until 1997 to make it happen.
07:31Joe Campbell will be given a life sentence and put away forever.
07:35Number 3.
07:36Asbestos
07:36This incredibly toxic substance was widely used as a building material starting in the 1800s.
07:42But today, it's illegal in most of the developed world.
07:44As long as there's profit to be made and officials to be bribed, this will continue.
07:49But if you can't control asbestos, the most notorious industrial carcinogen known, what can you control?
07:57It became popular because it's a great insulator and it's fireproof.
08:01But breathing in the fibers will seriously mess up your lungs and can cause cancer.
08:05Although the dangers were known for years, asbestos was still widely used in the U.S. in the 1980s.
08:10But it's now known as a carcinogen and hazardous substance because of the dangerous health risks from exposure to this toxic mineral.
08:18The EPA tried to ban it in 1989, but the industry challenged the ban in court and won.
08:23In fact, asbestos is still being used in some goods sold in America.
08:27In 2024, the EPA finally got a ban passed, which requires asbestos to be totally phased out by 2037.
08:34The new final EPA rule will help get asbestos out of household products once and for all.
08:40Number 2.
08:41Drinking legally at age 18
08:42Have you ever wondered why the drinking age in the U.S. is 21 when it's 18 or lower in most of the rest of the world?
08:47The drinking age varied from state to state. Some set at 18, most at 21, until the 1980s.
08:54Well, blame Ronald Reagan. When Prohibition was repealed in 1933, most states set their minimum drinking ages at 21.
09:00In the 70s, when the federal voting age was reduced from 21 to 18, many states did the same with their drinking age.
09:06For just over a decade, 18-year-olds all over the country could pop open a cold one when they got home from school.
09:11The proposal to raise the drinking age for beer has been the most over-debated measure to come before the General Assembly.
09:17But drunk driving skyrocketed during that time.
09:20In 1984, Congress passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which cut states' highway funding if they didn't raise their drinking ages back up to 21.
09:28The bill we're gathered to sign today reflects the will of the American people.
09:33It takes the battle to stop drunk driving one crucial step further.
09:37Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel and ring the bell to get notified about our latest videos.
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09:47If you're on your phone, make sure you go into your settings and switch on notifications.
09:53Number 1. Indoor Smoking
09:55There was a time when you couldn't go anywhere in the U.S. without being enveloped in a cloud of secondhand smoke.
10:00Smoking was allowed in restaurants, malls, schools, and on airplanes.
10:03The smokers have won, but in this battle, the smoke hasn't cleared.
10:07Cigarettes were even sold in vending machines.
10:09But as the health effects of smoking became widely known, people started pushing for bans on smoking indoors.
10:15A coffee and a smoke. Many people enjoy the two together, but at one Lakewood restaurant, you'll soon only be able to have the coffee.
10:22After all, it doesn't do much good to sit in the non-smoking section of a restaurant when the smokers are sitting just 10 or 20 feet away.
10:28In 1994, Utah passed the first ban on smoking in public places.
10:32Now, 38 states have totally or partially banned smoking in enclosed areas.
10:37We should be able to smoke anywhere we want to.
10:40I mean, you know, in a public place.
10:43That's the way I see it.
10:45For most people, smoking on a plane or in a restaurant is unthinkable.
10:48Which of these 80s things would you like to see make a comeback?
10:51Which ones do you think should stay banned?
10:53Let us know in the comments.
10:54I would wear my seatbelt.
10:56I get caught, I get caught, I guess.
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