Aggressive tactics fail to curb teen smokingstudy

By Gene Emery

BOSTON (Reuter) Vigorous enforcement of laws that ban cigarette sales to
minors may do little to curb teenage smoking, according to a study
released Thursday.

The research, involving student surveys in six Massachusetts communities
where enforcement of the law varied significantly, is the first to use a
control group to guage the effectiveness of laws banning the sale of
tobacco to minors.

The study, published in Thursday's edition of the New England Journal of
Medicine, is a setback for health officials, who have campaigned to stop
cigarette sales to minors to curtail the number of new smokers. Studies
show that 88 percent of smokers become hooked by age 18.

Nancy Rigotti, leader of the team of researchers from Massachusetts General
Hospital, said the laws against tobacco sales to children apparently are
being circumvented because:

+ Merchants know that young people sent by police into stores to test the
law are instructed to tell the truth if asked about their age.

+ Stores play it safe by selling only to their ``regular'' underage customers.

+ Teens are taking jobs in convenience stores so they can supply cigarettes
to their friends.

``It only takes one dishonest merchant to supply an entire school system
with tobacco'' and smokers quickly learn where that merchant is, said
coauthor Joseph DiFranza of Massachusetts General.

The research was released in the midst of a U.S. government campaign to
pressure states to reduce tobacco sales to minors. Communities that don't
comply face cuts in federal grant money for substance abuse.

The six researchers involved in the study had originally predicted that if
only 10 percent of stores allowed teenagers to buy cigarettes, the kids
would report that they were having a harder time getting tobacco and
consumption would decline. That did not happen.

In three communities where the law banning sales to children under age 18
was enforced with fines or warnings, 18 percent of the merchants still sold
a pack of cigarettes to 16yearold girls working with the researchers.
That was apparently enough to keep smoking rates up.

In those three towns, students polled in their high schools reported only a
small drop in their ability to purchase tobacco after enforcement was
toughened and no decline in its use.

In the control communities where enforcement was lax or nonexistent,
youngsters could buy cigarettes in 55 percent of the stores.

An underlying problem for health officials is that they may be using the
wrong method to test the effectiveness of the law. ``By the end of the
study, 16yearold girls participating in compliance checks could buy
tobacco in only 18 percent of stores in communities with enforcement
programs.

Yet 53 percent of 16yearolds living in the same communities reported that
they hardly ever failed to buy tobacco when they tried,'' said the Mass
General team. They said the checks may not be working because real teen
smokers probably lie about their age, use false identification, try to look
older, or get an older friend to buy their cigarettes.

The 16yearolds used in the compliance checks were told not to lie and are
often selected because they look 16. DiFranza said ``we had several
merchants tell your youths that they would be happy to sell them cigarettes
if they would simply say they were 18 years old.''

^REUTER@