Should children under the age of 18 be prohibited from using tanning beds?

Yes. Though using a tanning bed is the choice, I feel that not everyone is willing to look toward the long term effects of using a one. Negative effects may not be noticeable the day after, but may take place twenty years down the road. When tanning beds came out in the 1980's, my mom used them because it was no big deal. A couple years ago, nearly twenty years after, she had a malignant mole removed. Now my mom wasn't a person who sat in a tanning bed every single day. She only used one every once in a while, but from that came dangerous results. I speak from experience when I say that teens don't think about all of their actions. In the case of tanning bed restriction, I believe that no one can be stopped from using a tanning bed permanently, but they can be educated on the negative effects. A compromise could be not completely restricting the use of tanning beds to teens, but making a reduction in the time allowed to spend in a tanning bed. Coming to a compromise isn't a permanent solution to this problem, but it is a start.