Sterner Measures Clearly Necessary

Sat., April 17, 1999

By Doug Floyd dougf@spokesman.com

Even the retailers and manufacturers who profit from teen smoking will say, for the record at least, that they disapprove of it.

If they meant that, the Washington Department of Health wouldn’t have had to report this week that since 1990 smoking has increased 38 percent among children in grades 6 through 12.

Some of these youngsters swipe their smokes from home (or store displays) or buy from vending machines. But smokers under 18 don’t have to steal. Plenty of merchants sell them cigarettes illegally.

Correcting that situation will take cooperation and commitment by merchants, lawmakers and law enforcers, all of whom declare, when asked, that children shouldn’t start smoking and tobacco shouldn’t be so readily available to them.

Yet the Washington House of Representatives this year has ignored a Senate-passed measure that would have required most retailers to keep cigarettes behind the counter or under lock and key. The measure also would have outlawed the sale of cigarettes in packages of fewer than 20, doing away with temptingly cheap, individually packaged cigarettes.

And in Kootenai County, where an Idaho law already does away with self-service cigarette purchases, local law enforcement agencies are refusing to conduct sting operations in which teen volunteers find out which stores sell to underage buyers.

That would be entrapment, police and sheriff’s officials rationalize, or it would put teens at risk. But teen volunteers have been working with state liquor authorities in Spokane County since 1995, incident-free, and not one of their cases has been overturned for entrapment or any other reason.

Meanwhile, they have exposed numerous violators who never would have been caught any other way.

If everyone who claims to disapprove of smoking by teens and preteens would back it up with political resolve, future health statistics wouldn’t have to be so grim.

A society that cherishes its children gives them latitude to make choices from which they can learn but prevents them from making choices from which they can die.

Local journalism is essential.

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