Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 25, 1995 TAG: 9501270087
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WOODRIDGE, ILL. LENGTH: Medium
``They just won't sell them. They ask for your ID,'' he says.
In this middle-class Chicago suburb, youngsters under 18 have about as much chance of buying a pack of cigarettes as they do of buying a bottle of vodka.
It's a result of one of the nation's toughest tobacco-control ordinances. Enforced with undercover ``sting'' operations using teen-age decoys and $25 fines for minors caught with tobacco, the law is credited with cutting teen smoking rates to a fraction of national levels.
``It's considered model legislation across the United States,'' said Diana Hackbarth, a community-health nursing professor at Loyola University of Chicago.
Outlawing the sale of tobacco to teens isn't unusual; 44 states set a minimum age. But actually keeping tobacco out of teens' hands is unusual; federal experts estimate that by high school age, one youth in three smokes or uses smokeless tobacco.
The Woodridge ordinance has its roots in a junior high school principal's complaint in 1988 that a student had bought cigarettes at a store just half a block from school.
The complaint went to police Sgt. Bruce ``Buzz'' Talbot, who came up with the tough anti-tobacco provisions, enacted in 1989.
Any city merchant who sells tobacco to a minor can be fined up to $500. Repeat offenders can have their city-issued tobacco sale licenses suspended or revoked. Violators answer to the mayor, who is also the tobacco control commissioner, so cases don't clog the courts.
Woodridge's law holds minors accountable, too. Anyone under 18 caught with tobacco gets a $25 ticket. If a minor is caught trying to buy tobacco, the ticket is $50
The percentage of seventh- and eighth-graders experimenting with cigarettes has dropped by half since the law was enacted, and the rate of regular smoking among adolescents dropped by two-thirds, according to surveys taken before and after it went into effect.
\ Hooked Young
At least 3.1 million, or 13 percent, of youngsters ages 12 to 18 smoke.
The average smoker tries his or her first cigarette at age 14, and more than 70 percent who become daily smokers acquire the habit by age 18.
Teens who smoke may have arteries resembling those of 35-year-olds, because tobacco damages arteries and promotes fat buildup.
Smokers ages 12 to 17 are more than 50 times more likely than nonsmokers to use cocaine and 12 times more likely to use heroin.
- Associated Press
by CNB