ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, August 24, 1996 TAG: 9608260045
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
FOR TEENS, getting cigarettes is simple. Studies show nearly half of retailers in Western Virginia will sell them to underage smokers, no questions asked.
Kenneth Smith, 17, doesn't smoke, doesn't believe in it. "I just don't," he said.
But when he heard about a store in Roanoke that regularly sells cigarettes to underage customers, he decided to go check it out - just to test whether the retailer was really breaking the law.
"I went in and said: `I want a pack of Marlboros.' They didn't ask for no ID, no nothing."
As President Clinton readies a plan aimed at nipping teen and pre-teen smoking in the bud, there's one thing most people agree on: It's easy for underage kids to buy cigarettes.
"They're easier to get than water," one 17-year-old smoker said Thursday evening after he dropped a butt and smashed it with his foot in front of Roanoke's City Market Building. "I haven't been carded since I was, like, 15.'' He didn't want to give his name because he was, after all, breaking the law.
A 14-year-old companion said she has been smoking for a couple of years. She smokes up to a pack a day when she can afford it. "I think I've only been carded, like, three times in the last year," she said.
How many stores have sold her cigarettes, no questions asked?
"God only knows," she said.
It's against state law to sell tobacco to anyone under 18, but studies the past two years by the State Department of Health show that 44 percent of retailers in Western Virginia will sell cigarettes to underage customers - a figure well above the state average.
The law banning tobacco sales to underage customers has been on the books since 1988, but "it has never been enforced," said Neil Graham, who directs the health agency's anti-smoking programs.
Despite the widespread violations, Graham said, he knows of no retailer that has been prosecuted and convicted under the law.
Clinton's plan would limit cigarette advertising, ban sales from vending machines and force tobacco companies to pay for anti-smoking programs.
A survey of 1,300 Roanoke Valley high schoolers conducted by After Prom party organizers found nearly 27 percent smoke regularly, a bit below the national average. National surveys show 90 percent of smokers start by age 19; 60 percent start by age 14.
The 17-year-old smoker said the president's plan is "somewhat valid."
"I do think there should be less advertisement. I don't think we need new recruits" to smoking.
But he said there's only so much you can do to discourage people from smoking. "I don't think they should go to an extreme."
The best plan, he said, might be to force manufacturers to reduce the level of nicotine in their cigarettes.
Claude Smith, president of State Amusement Co. in Roanoke, which operates tobacco vending machines, said there's little that can be done to prevent teens from smoking.
"When people want cigarettes, they can get them," he said. "If they can buy cocaine, they can buy cigarettes. ... I can get kids out here to buy 10 cartons in an hour. They don't have to get them from vending machines. They can get them at convenience stores everywhere."
Timmy Blankenship, who works behind the counter at the 7-Eleven at Ninth Street and Buena Vista in Southeast Roanoke, knows it's easy for kids to buy cigarettes. But not at his store, he said.
"We've got kids in here all the time, trying to buy cigarettes," Blankenship said. When he turns them away, "they slam the door - they get mad. They cuss me."
Blankenship, 30, started smoking when he was 10. He figures he has smoked two to three packs a day since he was 14.
"If that law had been in effect, I probably wouldn't be smoking now," he said. "After you start smoking it's hard to get rid of, unless you really want to."
But at this point, he said, "I don't want to quit. It ain't hurting my body."
LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: STEPHANIE KLEIN-DAVIS/Staff. 1. Claude Smith, presidentby CNBof State Amusement Co., has more than 100 vending machines in the
Roanoke Valley. 2. (headshot) Smith. color. MIKE HUDSON STAFF
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