Outlawing
tobacco use by minors reinforces tobacco marketing.
Industry marketing strategies for "starters" include
presenting cigarettes as "part of the initiations into
the adult world," "illicit pleasure...products,"
"[a] declaration of independence," "symbols
of growing-up." Cigarette ads are full of images of
sexual fun, athletic success, freedom, and rebellion.
We
cooperate with tobacco marketing to kids. We allow the
industry almost unlimited access to our children, we allow
tobacco use in many public places, we do little to block
the availability of tobacco to minors, we fail to give children
adequate, attractive, health information, and many of us
smoke. To prohibit young people from behaving in the
way we have encouraged is inconsistent.
THE
TOBACCO INDUSTRY SUPPORTS PENALIZING MINORS FOR TOBACCO
USE. That should give us pause because the tobacco industry
has a history of supporting ineffective anti-tobacco measures,
often with hidden agendas (such as weak statewide "smokefree
air" laws with preemption of stronger local laws).
It
is a tobacco industry strategy to blame kids, to deflect
attention and responsibility from itself. In New Jersey,
a state law penalizes sellers (but not underage purchasers)
and requires signs wherever tobacco is sold or displayed.
The signs must say it is illegal to sell, furnish or give
tobacco to minors. But vending machines have had signs,
supplied by the Automatic Merchandising Council, saying,
"You must be 18 to buy tobacco products." In other
states, the tobacco industry supplies signs stating that
kids are breaking the law by buying cigarettes (true in
many jurisdictions) but not mentioning that sellers are
also breaking the law.
Tobacco
companies may claim lack of responsibility for their products
in future lawsuits if minors are breaking the law by purchasing
and using tobacco.
Enforcement
efforts directed at children divert staff and funding from
merchant enforcement.
Merchant
compliance programs work.
Studies show that enforcement programs can reduce sales
to minors.
Controlling
adult merchants is easier than controlling underage purchasers.
The sellers are licensed, their locations are known, there
are fewer of them. Fines from penalties can fund the enforcement.
Merchant
compliance is difficult to enforce if underage purchasers
are breaking the law. To comply with federal regulations,
all states must do surveys using minors. Research on sales
to minors, including scientific studies, plus surveys by
health organizations, local anti-drug groups, and journalists,
is also more difficult, or impossible, to undertake if kids
are breaking the law by purchasing tobacco.
Controlling
underage purchasers and users is difficult, if not impossible.
Kids are mobile, they are far more numerous than sellers,
they may not carry identification, tobacco products are
portable, tobacco has small effects on behavior (compared
to alcohol), there are many places and times minors can
use tobacco undetected, and even teachers and others familiar
with young people cannot accurately determine age by appearance.
Police departments don't give priority to enforcing these
laws.
THERE
IS NO EVIDENCE THAT PENALIZING MINORS FOR BUYING OR USING
TOBACCO PREVENTS OR REDUCES SMOKING BY KIDS. Joseph Cismoski
(Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drug Programs Coordinator, Fond
du Lac, Wisconsin, School District) has made scientific
studies of enforcement. He concludes that there are formidable
barriers to deterrent effects of citations and, even with
a large number of citations, it is unlikely that a perceived
certainty of apprehension could be achieved or maintained.
Experience
with trying to stop alcohol use by minors (and adults earlier
in this century) and illegal drug use by adults and minors
shows that prohibition on sales and/or purchase does not
eliminate use.
Laws
about tobacco sales and purchase are disproportionately
enforced against children rather than adult merchants.
In Maryland in 1995, 480 minors were penalized for tobacco
possession but no merchant was cited for selling tobacco
to minors. In Wisconsin in 1996, more than 6,000 citations
were issued to minors for purchase/possession of tobacco
but only 57 citations were issued to merchants for illegal
sales to minors. Marc Wolfson of the Wake Forest University
School of Medicine interviewed more than 1,000 police chiefs
and other city officials throughout the United States and
found few were doing merchant compliance enforcement but
many were acting against minors. Allowing adults to escape
responsibility for marketing and selling tobacco to children
while penalizing children is a blaming-the-victim approach.
Enforcing
laws against teen tobacco use can damage the good relationship
police departments strive to establish with young people.
This is a major reason that William H. Van Der Beek, Chief
of Police of Old Tappan, New Jersey, who has worked with
youth for more than 30 years, 17 years as a juvenile officer,
opposes penalizing youth for tobacco use.
Police
chiefs and officers have misgivings about a ban on tobacco
use by minors. Chief Van Der Beek surveyed his officers
and every one of them, including the DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance
Education) officer, opposed a ban. They gave many reasons
already listed in this paper plus these four concerns: A
ban on smoking in public could cause youth to go to unpatrolled
areas to smoke, where they might encounter other dangers
and be encouraged to use other drugs. Teen smoking is a
health issue; kids should get help, not penalties. If parents
allow kids to smoke, there could be enforcement problems.
Laws against tobacco use by minors contain a dangerous potential
for selective enforcement.
Laws
against teen smoking may cause disrespect for law, as
do all unenforceable laws. They teach kids how easy it is
to break the law, to get and use tobacco.
Blaming
kids has a chilling effect on young smokers and their parents.
Young people may be less likely to seek help for their nicotine
addiction if they are breaking the law by smoking or buying
tobacco. Parents will hesitate to report illegal tobacco
sales if doing so will implicate their children and themselves.
Most
children who use tobacco, like most adults who use tobacco,
are addicted and need help.
THE
TOBACCO CONTROL COMMUNITY IN NEW JERSEY OPPOSES PENALIZING
MINORS FOR TOBACCO USE. New Jersey Breathes is the state's
leading tobacco-control coalition. More than 50 state, health,
non-profit, and civic organizations participate in the coalition,
including the Medical Society of New Jersey, the American
Cancer Society, American Heart Association, American Lung
Association, New Jersey GASP, New Jersey State Department
of Health and Human Services, and the New Jersey PTA. New
Jersey Breathes opposes legislation penalizing minors for
tobacco use.
What
about the similarities with alcohol? Some people suggest
tobacco should be dealt with like alcohol, for which both
sales to minors and purchase or possession by minors are
illegal. But programs to deal with alcohol use by minors
have not been inspiring successes. Laws against minors'
buying and using alcohol are enforced with much greater
frequency than laws against selling alcohol to minors (in
one study, 42 times more frequently). Please see James
Mosher's paper on the alcohol and tobacco industries' strategy
to blame young people ("For more information,"
below).
I recommend
the following, from which I have learned much.
Joseph
Cismoski, "Blinded by the light: the folly of tobacco
possession laws against minors," Wisconsin Medical
Journal, November 1994. "Enforcement of Minor Tobacco
Laws: Wisconsin, 1996," Wisconsin Medical Journal,
November 1997.
Julia
Carol, "It's a good idea to criminalise purchase and
possession of tobacco by minors -- NOT!," Tobacco
Control 1992; 1:296-297.
Bill
Godshall, "Blaming victimized children," Smokefree
Pennsylvania Report, Summer, 1991.
Stanton
A. Glantz, "Editorial: Preventing tobacco use -- the
youth access trap," American Journal of Public Health,
February 1996, Vol. 86, No. 2, pages 156-158.
James
F. Mosher, "The merchants, not the customers: resisting
the alcohol and tobacco industries' strategy to blame young
people for illegal alcohol and tobacco sales," Journal
of Public Health Policy Vol. 16, No. 4, 1995, pages
412-432.
