Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 19, 1995 TAG: 9504200043
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Scott Geller, a Virginia Tech psychology professor known for his research on seat-belt use and other behavioral patterns, sent three young girls - his own 14- and 16-year-old daughters, plus an 18-year-old student - on separate visits to 20 town merchants to try to buy cigarettes. (Other students taking part in the research project observed each attempted transaction from the background and took notes.)
The results: The 14- and 16-year-olds had virtually no trouble making the illegal purchases (and neither did the youngish-looking 18-year-old). Only in a couple of instances did a clerk question the girl's age, or nix the sale if, following a script, she claimed to be 18 but said she'd ``forgotten'' her ID.
Geller said he was ``shocked'' at the results. We're not.
Though Virginia and 44 other states have laws prohibiting the sale of cigarettes to those under age 18, an estimated 1 billion packs a day are sold to minors.
Studies by the Department of Health and Human Services and others also have found that enforcement of bans against tobacco sales to kids is practically nil.
Witness Blacksburg Police Chief William Brown's reaction to Geller's documentation of the illegal sales in his town: ``This is not something that's a high priority on my list.''
Regrettably, enforcement of the law and other efforts to discourage teens from taking up the habit don't seem to make anyone's high-priority list.
The U.S. surgeon general in 1991 projected that 5 million of today's children will die of smoke-related illnesses if teen-age smoking continues at its current rate, but Virginia's legislators aren't greatly concerned.
If they were, they could order vigorous enforcement of the law. They could also - as did Woodridge, Ill. - put some teeth in it by imposing stiff fines on minors caught trying to buy tobacco products, and even stiffer penalties on merchants caught selling them.
For that matter, if they could muster enough worry and will, legislators could deter thousands of kids from joining the ranks of smoking teens simply by raising the cigarette tax, now the lowest in the nation. Because adolescents are more price-sensitive than other consumers, such a measure would literally save lives.
Instead, lawmakers continue to kowtow to Virginia's tobacco industry and its efforts to keep taxes low so as not to dissuade new generations of smokers from getting hooked. Why, higher excise taxes might offset the ease of buying cigarettes from vending machines. It might reduce the effectiveness of the Joe Camel character's appeal to kids, and of the billboard glamour pusses that link``women's cigarettes'' with fashion, beauty and sexy slimness in the minds of adolescent girls.
Says Geller of his research project: ``It pinpoints a serious problem we have in Blacksburg.'' Hey, professor: It pinpoints a serious problem we have across this country - the prospect of mounting medical costs, lost productivity, diminished health, painful disease and premature death for youth who now become regular smokers at a clip of 3,000 a day. The professor's findings could be replicated practically anywhere.
Memo: ***CORRECTION***