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Teen Smoking News on the Web Archive

Teen Smoking News on the Web

Note: These articles wink in and out of existence with the frequency of sub-atomic particles. Many links will be dead. In that case, these pages can be approached as bibliographies, both noting the event, and showing where you might look for further information.

• 4/97 The Perils, Promises And Pitfalls Of Criminalizing Youth Possession Of Tobacco Graham E. Kelder, Managing Attorney, Winter, 1997 Tobacco Control Update, Tobacco Control Resource Center,
  
  Existing empirical data supports the effectiveness of youth access restrictions like vending machine bans, bans on self-service displays and bans on the sale of single or loose cigarettes. The limited research that has been done to date on the effects of criminalization of youth possession of tobacco on teen smoking rates indicates that youth anti-possession measures are not the panacea that many advocates of them wish they were
  
  
• 04/03/98 Tobacco Use Among High School Students CDC
  
• 04/03/98 Alarming Rise In Teen Smoking Defies National Effort, CDC Says Atlanta Journal & Constitution
• 04/03/98 Smoking Among Teens Continues To Rise Philadelphia Inquirer
• 04/03/98 Smoking by Black Youths Is Up Sharply, Study Finds The New York Times
  
  Thursday, that optimism was all but extinguished by a new study that found that cigarette use among black high school students has jumped 80 percent since 1991.
• 04/03/98 Teen Smoking Spirals Chicago Sun-Times
• 04/03/98 Teen Tobacco Use Jumps 30% Since '91, Report Shows Dallas Morning News
• 04/03/98 Teens Are Lighting Up In Increasing Numbers Washington Post
  
• 04/03/98 Study Finds Sharp Rise in Teenage Tobacco Use LA Times. Here's the LA Times item at Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune: Tobacco Use By Teenagers -- Especially Blacks -- Increases
• 04/03/98 Smoking Among Teen-agers Rising, CDC Study Says Washington Post/Winston-Salem Journal
• 04/03/98 Teen-age Tobacco Use On The Rise LA Times/Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
• 04/02/98 More Smokers In Us High Schools, Especially Blacks Reuters
  
  Smoking by U.S. high school students rose 36 percent between 1991 and 1997, fueled by an 80 percent increase in smoking rates among black teenagers, federal health officials said on Thursday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the percentage of black male students who smoked has doubled since 1991. Smoking by black female students rose 54 percent during the same period.
• 04/02/98 More Teens Smoking Reuters
  
  "We're losing ground in the battle to protect our children," Health and Human Services Secretary Donna E. Shalala said in a press statement from her office. "There is no excuse for delay. Congress must act promptly to enact comprehensive tobacco control legislation to protect our children."
• 04/02/98 Teen Smoking Rises Sharply UPI
  
  The study found that the overall prevalence of tobacco use was 42.7 percent among high school students. About half of male students and a third of female students used cigarettes, cigars or smokeless tobacco in the past month, the report estimates. Whites had the highest rate of tobacco use, at 46.8 percent, followed by Hispanics (36.8 percent) and African Americans (29.4 percent). CDC's Michael P. Eriksen says, "It's obvious that we are losing the war." He says that anti-tobacco rhetoric is not working, especially when public policies have not changed in any substantial way. Eriksen says, "There's a lot of posturing and proclamations about how bad smoking is, but in reality, it is business as usual for the tobacco companies."
• 04/02/98 Study: 43 Pct. of Teens Use Tobacco AP
  
  Forty-three percent of the nation's high school students either smoke cigarettes or cigars or chew tobacco, and the number of teen-age smokers is steadily rising, the government says in a report likely to boost efforts to reduce teen smoking. Among the most disturbing findings is that smoking by black students -once hailed as a success story for their continually low cigarette use -has almost doubled.
• 04/03/98 Download the MMWR PDF file from the CDC
  
  
• 04/03/98 PENNSYLVANIA: Smoking 'Looks Cool,' Unconcerned Teens Insist Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
  
  Health risks and the disapproval of parents appeared to have little effect on the young smokers
  
  
• 04/02/98 MONTANA: Tobacco Retail 101 NBC Montana/MSNBC
  
  Missoula retailers got a lesson in tobacco laws, Thursday. They received a refresher course on minimum-age sales laws for tobacco products, and they were shown how to recognize fake identifications. The retailers also learned some appropriate responses for frequently encountered situations, as when a customer is asked for ID but gives the retailer a difficult time about it. The goal of the training session is to keep minors from buying tobacco products. Bill Stevens "No one, including the retailers, wants to encourage kids to smoke,"
  
  
• 04/04/98 WISCONSIN: Study: Teens Can Buy Smokes 20 Percent Of The Time AP
  
  Minors trying to buy cigarettes illegally in Wisconsin service stations, convenience stores and other businesses were successful more than 20 percent of the time during a study, a state agency says. Vending machines proved to be an easier source of supply than the checkout counter, the state Department of Health and Family Services said. . . The survey was conducted last summer by the department, using children 15 and 16 years old to pose as customers older than 18.
• 04/04/98 Stores Who Sold Smokes To Teens At A Glance AP
  
  Types of businesses where the Wisconsin health department says minors attempted to buy tobacco illegally during a survey:
  
  
• 04/04/98 ARIZONA: State's Teen Smoke Rate Low; But They're Puffing More Today Than In '91 The Arizona Republic
  
  
• 04/04/98 CALIFORNIA: The Local Angle: Youth Smoking At 12% In State Sacramento Bee
  
  According to the most recent data available from the California Department of Health Services, nearly 12 percent of state youth reported smoking within a month of a survey taken in 1996. That survey did not include questions about smokeless tobacco or cigars, although a separate poll did find that 4 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds smoked cigars within the previous month and 1 percent of that age group chewed tobacco. There is no way to determine the overlap in the surveys, said department spokesman Ken August.
  
  
• 04/07/98 Teen Smoking Campaign Flops By Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe
  
  We have made it illegal for minors to acquire tobacco; we have made sure they know that smoking is unhealthy; we have jacked up the price of cigarettes with state and federal taxes. That much makes sense. Anything more - the bans on tobacco-logo T-shirts, the Joe Camel insanity, the persecution of restaurant owners - is hysteria. And as the new statistics suggest, nothing makes tobacco more alluring to adolescents than hysterical grown-ups admonishing them not to smoke.
  
  
• 04/07/98 EDITORIAL: Preventing Kids From Lighting Up Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
  
  Reversing this dangerous trend of teen smoking will take nothing short of a full-scale, wide-ranging assault that must involve everyone. Congress and President Clinton should adopt tough legislation to sharply curtail tobacco advertising aimed at young people, increase the price of cigarettes -- beyond the $1.10-per-pack boost under a bill now before the Senate -- and impose severe financial penalties on the tobacco industry if teen smoking doesn't decrease sufficiently. . . Finally, parents must shoulder some responsibility, by not smoking themselves and by promoting a healthy lifestyle, one in which children feel confident enough that they don't need to light up to get noticed or be accepted.
  
  
• 04/03/98 GEORGIA: Local Teens Going Up In Smoke Savannah Morning News
  
  Researchers are still crunching the numbers on a survey of youth risk behaviors conducted on 379 Chatham County ninth graders last year, but there's little reason to believe it will differ much from the rest of the nation, said Sandy Streater, the head of health sciences department at Armstrong Atlantic State University and a member of Partners for Community Health, the organization that carried out the survey. "General data says over 60 percent of students have tried smoking by the time they're 14," he said. "Preliminary results say Chatham County mirrors the national figures.".
  
  
• 04/06/98 CONNECTICUT: Agencies Unaware Of Their Role In Enforcing Tobacco Id Law The Chronicle, Willimantic, Conn
  
  A year after the government launched a much-publicized drive to cut down on underage smoking, the effort is weighted down in a bureaucratic morass. . . So what happened? In an attempt to check the status of the enforcement effort, a Chronicle reporter was led on a wild goose chase, making the following calls to state and local agencies:.
  
  
• 04/06/98 Science Starting to Tackle Teen Smoking LA Times
  
  Teens have their own issues, their own persuasion trigger points, their own pressures. What works for adult smokers--and researchers are still trying to figure out that problem too--may backfire for adolescents. In California, a phone counseling program that has been in place since 1992 ([800] 7-NO BUTTS) began providing teen counseling in 1996. . . "Kids don't stay in the programs. The best likelihood of success is to tie in the cessation program with an activity the kid likes," Benowitz says. That might be athletics, he says, or a church youth group or other activity, making participation in one dependent on the other. What's also worth a try, in his view, is nicotine patches for teens 15 or older.
  
  
• 04/06/98 Experts Baffled By Rise In Teen Smoking Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
  
  The likely ingredients include: peer pressure; low self-esteem; wanting to be cool; keeping weight down; Joe Camel and the Marlboro man and other advertising and promotions; smoking by actors on television and in movies; parental smoking; defiance of adults and authority; and the teenager's view that the health consequences of smoking are a long way off. But, one consequence of smoking is not off in the distant, smoky future -- addiction. . . The girls said they smoke four to 10 cigarettes a day. Do they want to quit? "Yes." "Yes." "Yes," was the chorus of answers.
  
  
• 04/06/98 MINNESOTA: Allina Health System's Survey Shows 1 in 5 Kids Have Tried Smoking PR Newswire
  
  Allina Health System announced today that almost 20 percent of the elementary school students surveyed for Project ACT have tried smoking. Researchers surveyed 1,347 students in grades four through eight in the fall of 1997. Almost one in five students (18.7%) said they had taken a puff of a cigarette. The students' average age was ten years. More than one in three (33.1%) said it was easy to get cigarettes from vending machines, and one in seven (15.1%) kids said they owned a T-shirt with a cigarette logo or picture. Survey responses by students' parents are currently being analyzed. .
  
  
• 04/09/98 Higher Cigarette Prices Would Have An "Insignificant" Impact On Teen-Age Smokers, A Cornell Study Finds Science Daily
  
  Boosting taxes on cigarettes will have a far less dramatic effect on rates of teen-age smoking than politicians are hoping, a new Cornell University study finds. In fact, say the researchers, higher taxes will have "a statistically insignificant impact" on whether young people decide to start smoking. . . The study was carried out by Don Kenkel and Alan Mathios, both economists and associate professors in policy analysis and management in Cornell's College of Human Ecology, and Phil Decicca, a graduate student in their department.
• 04/07/98 Cost Won't Stop Teen Smokers: Study UPI Twelfth New York News Report
  
  A new study finds boosting the price of cigarettes has almost no impact on whether young people decide to smoke. The Cornell study finds a $1.50-a-pack increase would reduce the number who take up smoking by only 2 percent. Some researchers have estimated the tax increase would cut the number by half. The researchers say higher taxes do reduce total tobacco sales and encourage adults to cut down or quit.
  
  
• 04/09/98 MICHIGAN: Kids Rate Antismoking Messages Detroit Free Press
  
  The fifth- and sixth-graders at Taylor's Racho Elementary School served as guinea pigs Wednesday -- and they loved it. Health and Human Services Secretary DONNA SHALALA visited the school to talk to students about the dangers of smoking and to get feedback from them about what kind of message kids will buy. She also gave them a sneak peek at an antismoking ad featuring the singing group Boyz II Men, which has yet to air.
  
  
• 04/09/98 VIRGINIA: Illegal Alcohol, Tobacco Sales Uncovered Metro In Brief, Washington Post
  
  The illegal sales numbers were a little better for tobacco. About 29 percent of stores checked made illegal tobacco sales to minors. But as with alcohol sales, nearly half of the tobacco sales were made after the buyers presented IDs.
  
  
• 04/09/98 MASSACHUSETTS: Steep Drop Found In Mass. Adult Smoking; Tax Is Cited Boston Globe
  
  The survey, carried out by the consulting firm Abt Associates and scheduled for release next week, found that consumption of cigarettes had dropped 31 percent since 1993, when the current $37 million dollar tobacco control program, funded by the cigarette tax, began. . . The percentage of adult smokers over 18 years old has dropped to 20.6 percent in 1997 from 22.6 percent in 1993 . . . Massachusetts's youth cigarette smoking rate still remains above the national average of 29 percent, but unlike what is happening across the country, the number of young smokers has remained level at about 31 percent.
  
  
• 04/10/98 INTERVIEW: DR. JOYCELYN ELDERS: Salon Mothers who Think; Not Waiting to InhaleSalon
  
  Last year a group of African-American religious leaders blamed Big Tobacco for the increase in cigarette smoking among black youth. They pointed to advertisements such as the hip-hop Joe Camel displayed in their neighborhoods and complained of what they saw as an industrywide plot to seduce black youth into the deadly world of cigarettes. Their concern, it turns out, was on the money: . . Salon spoke with Dr. Joycelyn Elders . . about the current state of health education, the role advertising plays in luring smokers and why she still supports the president.
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• 04/10/98 Hostage Drama Ends with Cigarettes, Pizza Reuters
• 04/10/98 ILLINOIS: School Standoff Ends Peacefully AP/Chicago Tribune
  
  A 14-year-old student at a school for troubled youths pulled a gun on the principal Thursday, then holed up for five hours before surrendering after trading his guns for cigarettes, pizza and pop.
  
  
• 04/10/98 TEXAS: Fires Of Enforcement Burn Dimly; Law Took Effect Jan. 1, But Youths Puff On Boldly Houston Chronicle
  
  A new state law to squelch underage smoking took effect Jan. 1, but the Houston Police Department has yet to cite a single youngster. The law imposes 12 hours of tobacco education, a $250 fine, or suspension of a driver's license for any under-18 youth caught smoking in public. It also punishes businesses that sell to minors. Yet despite political puffery surrounding Senate Bill 55 when it was enacted, no one seems in a hurry to enforce it.
  
  
• 04/10/98 WASHINGTON: Tormented Student Pardoned in Wash. AP
  
  Brian Cade Sperry said he feared for his life in April 1995, when he was surrounded by more than 200 students, some chanting " kill him, hurt him." . . . Debora Sperry said her son endured harassment from classmates since he arrived in 1992 from Helena, Mont., because he would not drink, smoke or have sex.
  
  
• 04/10/98 Teen Tobacco Use: Bad News ABC News.com
  
  "Movies are a big problem. There's been a radical increase in cigar and cigarette use in the movies. And the people who are doing the smoking are never the losers." -- Prof. Stanton Glantz, UCSF. Adolescent smoking rates have been on a gradual upswing for the past six years, a fact that's likely to influence tobacco control legislation now before Congress.
  
  
• 04/11/98 UTAH: Anti-Tobacco Effort Won't Go Up in Smoke Salt Lake Tribune
  
  An anti-tobacco campaign targeting Utah youths will go forward despite a budgeting mistake by the Legislature. That's the consensus of lawmakers, the Health Department and budget makers who noticed too late that proper provisions were not made to cut checks for the ad campaign.
  
  
• 04/11/98 UTAH: 7 Cedar City Clerks Cited For Selling Tobacco To Youth Salt Lake Tribune
  
  Seven store clerks have been cited for selling tobacco to an underage buyer during a police sting operation this week. Clerks at JR's Truck Stop, Gary's Texaco, KB Express, Marty's Mart, Holiday Texaco, Surfast and Wal-Mart sold cigarettes to one of four underage buyers, according to police.
  
  
• 04/09/98 NEW YORK: Kick Butt Sales To Kids - Vacco (New York) Daily News
  
  f you sell smokes to kids, you're out of luck for LOTTO. That's the centerpiece of tough new laws state Attorney General DENNIS VACCO is proposing to keep cigarettes away from New York kids. Under the plan, stores caught selling cigarettes or liquor to kids could lose their Lotto licenses. The threat of losing Lotto will insure that a storeowner "will be a lot more aware of who his clerk sells to at 2 in the morning," Vacco said yesterday at a news conference.
  
  
• 04/13/98 Smoking Drops Slightly in CALIFORNIA BW HealthWIre
  
  Adult smoking measured 18.2 percent in 1997, as compared with 18.6 percent in 1996. In contrast, the national rate of adult smoking prevalence has averaged 25 percent over the past five years. Youth smoking also declined slightly, measuring 10.9 percent in 1997, as compared with 11.2 percent in 1996.
  
  
• 04/14/98 Fla. Anti-smoke Campaign Eyes Tobacco "Supporters" Reuters
  
  "The purpose of the list is to put the companies on alert that teens are holding them partly responsible for teen tobacco use," program spokeswoman Carlea Bauman said Tuesday. . . Leon County student Tori Binitie, 17, said the teen-agers working on the anti-tobacco pilot project were putting the companies on notice that they must take the issue of teen smoking seriously. "We can boycott, we can protest, we can affect them in their pockets."
• 04/14/98 Fla. Anti-Tobacco Ads Aims at Teens AP
• 04/14/98 Truth Becomes a Logo in Florida's Anti-Smoking Ads The New York Times
  
  In ambitious campaign to discourage smoking among teen-agers -- created with the assistance of the intended audience -- is joining "The X-Files" in asserting that the truth is out there. The broadcast, print, outdoor and interactive campaign, which begins this week, takes the unusual tack of trying to change behavior by transforming a concept -- truth -- into a brand. The goal of the campaign, sponsored by the Florida Department of Health with an initial budget of $25 million, is to counter what the advertisements charge are the inaccurate and misleading pitches used by the tobacco industry to sell its products to underage smokers. . . Florida's statement also listed advertising and public relations agencies with tobacco clients. However, the list was flawed. One agency that creates tobacco ads, Young & Rubicam Advertising in New York, was omitted from the list. And one included on the list, Trone Advertising in Greensboro, N.C., has not handled tobacco accounts since 1996. "We're completely out of that business," said James H. Feeney, president and chief executive of Trone. "We're a totally smoke-free office and a tobacco-free agency."
• 04/14/98 FLORIDA: Florida Names Firms It Describes As Supporters of Tobacco Industry The Wall Street Journal (pay registration)
  
  Monday, the state released a list of more than 70 ad agencies, public-relations firms, magazine publishers and retailers that it describes as "Tobacco Industry Supporters." The unusual list even includes bait shops and gift stores.
• 04/13/98 Fla. Anti-Tobacco Ads Aims at Teens AP
  
  "It's teens talking to teens -- we're not telling them what to do. We're just letting them know what the tobacco companies are doing to them," said 17-year-old TORI BINITIE, a junior at Lincoln High School in Tallahassee who appears in the campaign.
• 04/13/98 Youth Demand 'Truth' From Tobacco Supporters; FLORIDA Launches Ad Campaign PR Newswire
  
  Using funds from its settlement with the tobacco industry, today the State of Florida is launching a $25 million annual anti-tobacco advertising campaign. The "Truth" campaign was developed by Florida's teens and uses one of the most effective strategies known to affect teen behavior: rebellion. In this ad campaign, teens are demanding more honesty from tobacco supporters, including distributors, retailers, advertising agencies, the media that accept tobacco advertising, and movies that glamorize smoking. The tag- line for the campaign is "Their brand is lies. Our brand is truth."
  
  
• 04/16/98 MISSOURI: STEP UP Shows Merchants Don't Care Who Buys Cigarettes Kansas City Star
  
  The findings, released April 2 as part of "Kick Butts Day 1998," showed 21 of the 76 stores would have sold cigarettes to underage teens. And half of the 21 would have finished the sale even after checking the students' identification and seeing they were younger than 18.
  
  
• 04/15/98 Schools Try to Curb Teen Smoking AP
  
  The war on teen smoking is heading to the toilet. The oldest bastion of student smoking, boys' and girls' restrooms, is increasingly being targeted by school officials across the country.
  
  
• 04/15/98 American Cancer Society's PENNSYLVANIA Tobacco Prevention Network To Educate and Empower Youth in Youth Conference PR Newswire
  
  The American Cancer Society's Pennsylvania Tobacco Prevention Network (PTPN), funded by the Tobacco Control Program of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, will educate and empower Pennsylvania's youth, ages 14-18, about tobacco use prevention activities in a youth conference, "Tobacco-Free Youth Working Together Making a Difference!" from 12:30 p.m., April 16, to 2:00 p.m., April 17, at the Grantville Holiday Inn near Hershey.
  
  
• 04/21/98 PENNSYLVANIA: PA Coalition Opposes Criminalizing Youth Possession of Tobacco PR Newswire
  
  A broad-based coalition of Pennsylvania tobacco prevention groups opposes HB 1472 which would criminalize possession and use of tobacco by minors. HB 1472, introduced by state REP. DAN SURRA (D-Elk), is scheduled for consideration by the full PA House of Representatives tomorrow. "Our coalition has grave concerns that this bill may actually increase youth tobacco use by inappropriately shifting responsibility away from businesses and adults who are marketing and selling tobacco products to minors, a tactic long advocated by Big Tobacco," said JEFFREY BARG, president of the COALITION FOR A TOBACCO FREE PENNSYLVANIA.
  
  
• 04/21/98 OHIO: Licensing Cigarette Sellers Requested Cincinnati Enquirer
  
  Tapping into growing anti-tobacco sentiment, two of Ohio's top statewide officials called Monday for increased penalties for retailers caught selling cigarettes to minors. The proposal by Gov. George Voinovich and Attorney General Betty Montgomery is the latest attempt to curb teen smoking, which continues to rise nationwide despite more aggressive prevention efforts. Under their initiative, retailers would be required to buy new licenses to sell tobacco products.
• 04/21/98 Tobacco-To-21 Responds to Governor, Attorney General Proposal To License Tobacco Retailers
  
  Tobacco-To-21 is now urging the governor and attorney general to take the next logical step and endorse the minimum age requirement for purchasing tobacco to 21, the minimum age standard for purchasing alcohol.
• 04/21/98 Retailers Object To Proposed Stricter Penalty On Tobacco Sales AP/Akron Beacon Journal
  
  John C. Mahaney Jr., president of the Ohio Council of Retail Merchants, said the state should make it illegal for minors to buy tobacco before further penalizing the sellers.
  
  
• 04/21/98 Hike In Cigarette Price Won't Deter Teens Reuters
  
  Although some studies seem to support the idea that higher taxes on cigarettes have a significant impact on rates of teen smoking, economists Don Kenkel and Alan Mathios of Cornell's College of Human Ecology, Ithaca, New York, say closer scrutiny of the data show little reduction in smoking behavior. In fact, Kenkel and Mathios along with graduate student Phil Decicca say that a 20-cent per pack tax increase would reduce the number of new teenage smokers in grades 8 through 12 by less than one-half of a percentage point. Further, they estimate a $1.50 per pack boost in price -- which the President says would cut teen smoking in half -- would reduce the number of new smokers by just 2%. These study findings were first presented earlier this year at the American Economics Association annual meeting in Chicago, Illinois.
  
  
• 04/21/98 MAINE: Anti-smoke Ads To Avoid Pitfalls Portland Press Herald
  
  "If you tell kids don't do it, don't do it, it's the first thing they want to do when they hit that rebellious stage," says DR. DORA ANNE MILLS, the state's director of public health. . . Mills said part of the campaign will include airing television commercials showing how the tobacco industry manipulates the public into wanting to smoke. . . "It kind of gives them something to rebel against," Mills said. Maine's $4.5 million new campaign - called a PARTNERSHIP FOR TOBACCO-FREE MAINE - primarily will be funded through an increase in the state tax on cigarettes.
  
  
• 04/21/98 ILLINOIS: BUFFALO GROVE: Ordinance Adds Options For Punishing Underage Smokers Chicago Tribune
  
  Police officers will have more flexibility in punishing young people caught smoking now that the Village Board has passed an ordinance increasing the sanctions they can impose. Under terms of the ordinance passed Monday night, the department's youth officer will have a choice of issuing a ticket with a $50 fine, sentencing a youth to community service or sending him to a stop-smoking program.
  
  
• 04/22/98 Youths Tie Tobacco Use to Marijuana The New York Times
  
  Teen-agers themselves, and some experts who have studied adolescent smoking, add another, less predictable explanation to the mix of factors: the decision to take up smoking because of a belief that cigarettes prolong the heady rush of marijuana. "It makes the high go higher," said Marquette, a 16-year-old student
  
  
• 04/23/98 Bay Area Leads In Teen Smoking St. Petersburg Times
  
  A new statewide survey by the Florida Department of Health shows that middle and high school students in Pinellas, Pasco, Hillsborough and Manatee counties are more likely to smoke than teens in any other part of Florida. Experts have no idea why.
• 04/23/98 Florida Teens Light Up Despite Campaign Reuters
• 04/23/98 FLORIDA: State's Minors Respond To The Lure Of Tobacco Miami Herald
  
  More than one-third of Florida's high schoolers and almost one-quarter of middle schoolers say they have consumed some form of tobacco -- cigarettes, cigars or chew -- within the past 30 days. State health authorities say this level of tobacco use among minors -- revealed Wednesday in the results of a massive state survey -- portrays a daunting challenge for Florida's emerging campaign against smoking.
• 04/23/98 S. Florida Teens Smoke Less Than State Average, Study Says Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
  
  More than a third of the state's high school students and nearly a quarter of its middle school students have used tobacco within the past 30 days, Gov. Lawton Chiles said on Wednesday. But South Florida -- bolstered by high numbers of blacks and Hispanics, who smoke far less than white teens -- fell below the state average.
  
  
• 04/23/98 How to Sell Cigarettes to Kids The Wall Street Journal (pay registration)
  
  People who spend billions on it know to their sorrow that advertising is a weak force, ignored by most consumers most of the time. . . Rather, advertising seems to work only on those who are already in the market for a message. . . On the slight chance that anyone in Washington is really interested, "just say no" was probably the most effective message ever aimed at kids.
  
  
• 04/19/98 ILLINOIS: RIVERWALK Parking Ban Lifted The Naperville Sun
  
  But youths under age 18 caught smoking or possessing tobacco products will be ticketed by police patrolling the popular downtown attraction.
  
  
• 04/23/98 New Anti-Smoking Ads Target Movie Industry LA Times
  
  Two government-funded advertising campaigns are putting the motion picture industry on the defensive. As part of an effort funded by its settlement with Big Tobacco, Florida is running print ads developed with input from teens that attack film images of smoking. "Attention movie industry," said an ad that ran recently in The Times and Hollywood trades. "We're your best customers. So why are you trying to kill us?"
  
  
• 04/24/98 The Perils, Promises And Pitfalls Of Criminalizing Youth Possession Of Tobacco Graham E. Kelder, Managing Attorney, Winter, 1997 Tobacco Control Update, Tobacco Control Resource Center,
  
  Existing empirical data supports the effectiveness of youth access restrictions like vending machine bans, bans on self-service displays and bans on the sale of single or loose cigarettes. The limited research that has been done to date on the effects of criminalization of youth possession of tobacco on teen smoking rates indicates that youth anti-possession measures are not the panacea that many advocates of them wish they were
  
  
• 04/26/98 PENNSYLVANIA: Burlco Freeholder Fumes Over Use Of Teen Scouts Metro, Philadelphia Inquirer
  
  BURLINGTON COUNTY freeholders last week approved continuing an anti-tobacco program that will bring the county more than $16,000 of state money raised through licenses for tobacco sellers. But freeholder William S. Haines Jr., voted against it, objecting to the part of the program that uses teenage Explorer Scouts to attempt to buy cigarettes to make sure stores are sending them away.
  
  
• 04/26/98 WASHINGTON: Investigating Those Who Sell Cigarettes To Minors KHQ-6, Spokane, WA/MSNBC
  
  State agents told KHQ News they are not surprised their teen buyer went away with cigarettes. Washington has one of the highest compliance rates in the country with more than 80% of stores refusing to sell to kids. "It's encouraging to see," admits Charlotte Rima of the Spokane County Health District. Still, it doesn't mean teens cannot get cigarettes. Some underage smokers told KHQ News that they get people to buy their packages for them. The teens will sit in front of a store, asking those going inside to buy them cigarettes. Eventually, the teens say, they succeed. That's why there's a new law that will soon go on the books in Washington. Starting June 12th it will be illegal for teens to possess tobacco, whether they purchased it or not.
  
  
• 04/27/98 NEW YORK CITY: 100 Youths Checking Sale Of Cigarettes To Teen-agers The New York Times
  
  Over the next six months, 100 teen-agers, recruited through a city-run employment program, will be paid $6.25 an hour to roam the city, randomly checking the 15,500 stores that sell cigarettes and other tobacco products as part of a program called Summer Smoke Out.
• 04/27/98 Teens Smoke Out Tobacco Violations Reuters
  
  
• 04/27/98 TEXAS: County Smoking Out Juvenile-law Fallacies Austin American-Statesman
  
  Williamson County law enforcement officials will explain laws related to underage smoking and drinking from 7 to 9 p.m. today at St. Williams Parish Activity Center, 1150 McNeil Road.
  
  
• 04/30/98 OHIO: 'WE CARD' Tobacco Sales Training Programs Planned for 1998 PR Newswire
  
  
• 04/30/98 OHIO: New Statewide Study of OHIO 11th Graders Finds D.A.R.E. Curbs Drug, Alcohol Use / Students with Multiple Semesters of D.A.R.E. 50% Less Likely to Be High Risk Drug Users / Strengthens Peer Resistance Skills, Police Officer Respect
  
  Additionally, The OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY study found that D.A.R.E. students had superior skills in judging TV programming and commercials depicting drugs and alcohol. "This is very encouraging because too often the mass media -- movies, TV, music -- romanticizes getting high or getting loaded," Levant said. "D.A.R.E. emphasizes that these messages are false, that smoking, drinking and drugging harms young bodies. Our message is getting through."
  
  
• 04/30/98 OPINION: Ineffective Against Smoking Rates Simon Chapman, Washington Post
  
  From here in Australia, aspects of the U.S. debate on tobacco control seem decidedly parochial. President Clinton's endorsement of the $1.10-per-pack price rise on cigarettes over five years and a forecast 65 percent fall in teenage smoking over 10 years have all the hallmarks of magic-bullet thinking ["Tobacco Bill Skirts Liability," front page, March 30]. . . While the "scream test" from the tobacco industry confirms that significant tax increases bite into sales, a $1.10 tax hike would take the United States only to the middle range of world cigarette prices. The $1.10-per-pack increase is most unlikely to be the knockout punch that some seemingly naive (or calculating) proponents predict it will be.
  
  
• 04/30/98 Teens Have Conservative Attitudes: Poll UPI
  
  A New York Times/CBS News poll finds that teens give tattoos, beepers, school condom distribution programs and God a thumbs-up and have conservative views about sex. . . Strong majorities say they never drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes or marijuana, and 19 in 20 say they believe in God.
  
  
• 05/04/98 Sexual Orientation Associated With Increased Health Risk In Teenagers, Study Shows PR Newswire
  
  The responses came in a voluntary, anonymous Youth Risk Behavior Survey prepared by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with an added question on sexual orientation, according to Robert H. DuRant, Ph.D., professor of pediatrics at the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, and senior author of the Pediatrics paper. . . The survey was conducted in Massachusetts high schools in 1995 . . use of smokeless tobacco in the previous 30 days was four times as common among gay teens than straight ones. . . Fifty-nine percent of gay teens smoked cigarettes, compared to 35 percent of straight teens. . . 48 percent smoked cigarettes before age 13 . . "Gay, lesbian and bisexual adolescents face tremendous challenges growing up physically and mentally healthy in a culture that is often unaccepting," the researcher said.
  
  
• 05/04/98 Teens: Smoking Remedies Will Fall Short USA Today
  
  As a reality check on what may well be the highest-profile domestic issue of the year, USA TODAY last week polled the sophomore class at Fort Hill High School . . . The survey found that about one-fourth of the sophomore class smokes, with girls almost three times more likely to smoke than boys. Nearly one-third of the smokers say they started before they were teen-agers, at age 12 or younger. Their chief reaction to Washington's remedies, at least considered individually, was skepticism. Raising the price of cigarettes by $1.10 a pack won't deter many, though a price increase that gets a pack over $5 might. . . At 15 and 16, they say their smoking habits already are so entrenched that policymakers would do better to focus on their elementary-school siblings.
  Here's the article at the 05/08/98 Detroit News
  
  
• 05/04/98 NEW YORK: U.S. Retailers Agree To Help Curb Teen Smoking Reuters
  
  Under the agreements, CVS, Shell and Duane Reade will implement "mystery shopper" programs to test employee compliance, while K Mart agreed to move all of its tobacco products to a single, supervised store location to ensure that products are not being sold to minors.
  
  
• 05/05/98 OPINION: The Hispanic Youth Smoking Epidemic Elena Rios RIOS, president of the National Hispanic Medical Association. San Diego Union-Tribune
  
  Hispanic teen-agers are smoking more these days. Even more troubling, Hispanic eighth graders -- the youngest teen-agers -- light up more frequently than their white and African-American counterparts. A recent study showed that 18.3 percent of Hispanic eighth graders had smoked up during the previous 30 days. That compares to just 6.6 percent among African-Americans and 17.8 percent among white eighth graders.
  
  
• 05/08/98 FLORIDA: Kids Call The Shots In Florida Anti-smoking Campaign CNN
• 05/09/98 Teens Seek To Sell Peers On 'Truth' The LA Times article (below), at Contra-Costa (CA) Times
• 05/08/98 Teen-Driven Ad Campaign Puts Heat on Big Tobacco LA Times
  
  But what would happen if young smokers saw themselves not as cool, but as targets? As pawns, cynically manipulated in a corporate chess game? What if the brand they chose was not Marlboro or Camel but Truth? Those are the questions that may be answered over the next two years in Florida as the state begins to spend $50 million of Big Tobacco's money to pay for a teen-directed, guerrilla-style advertising campaign designed to reverse the rising rate at which young people are taking up cigarettes, cigars and chewing tobacco.
  
  
• 05/08/98 KENTUCKY: Cigarette Scene In School Play Burns Parents Lexington (KY) Herald Leader
  
  A TATES CREEK HIGH SCHOOL play director went on with the show last night even though a central office administrator had ordered that the play be rewritten. At issue was the use of a real cigarette in BYE BYE, BIRDIE. Ken Cox, Fayette County's director of high schools, ordered a rewrite to remove all mention of tobacco. In the end, play director KAREN BRINKERHOFF defied the order, but used a fake cigarette. The consequences of Brinkerhoff's actions aren't yet known.
  
  
• 05/10/98 There's No More Blair There Washington Post
  
  They're closing Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring . . let me take you back to life at Dale Drive and Wayne Avenue circa 1961-62 . . . There were no beatings. There were no stabbings. . . There might have been a fistfight or two each year, possibly out by "the Grove," a wooded area right at Dale and Wayne, where students were allowed to smoke cigarettes before school, at lunch and after school. (We were given complimentary cartons of cigarettes when we graduated, along with little miniature chests of drawers from a local furniture store. The tobacco companies wanted our business, and we wanted the cigarettes.)
  
  
• 05/13/98 NEW JERSEY: Health Chief Fights Tobacco Sale To Minors Bergen Record
  
  An undercover operation last month, in which seven of 18 merchants were given warnings for selling cigarettes to juveniles, underscores the need for more enforcement, said HENRY G. MCCAFFERTY, the city's health officer. "You're going to see a lot more [enforcement], and you can tell them that, too."
  
  
• 05/16/98 ARIZONA: Clerks Burned For Teen Tobacco Sales Arizona Daily Star
  
  "You're only 17,'' he told her when he saw her ID. ``Yeah,'' she replied. Looking around, he told her to ``Pocket 'em fast.'' . . The clerk's conduct surprised Tucson police reserve Officer Paul Howe a little, but not much. He and his daughter have seen a lot since they teamed up in November to find out how many stores are breaking laws by selling cigarettes to customers younger than 18. So far this year, 43 percent of approximately 200 stores hit by the police sting operation have sold to a minor
  
  
• 05/15/98 NEW YORK: Tougher Anti-tobacco Bills Sought Thirteenth New York News Report, UPI
  
  New Yorkers overwhelmingly support new curbs on tobacco. That's the finding of a survey released today by the Coalition for a Healthy New York. . . The Coalition is using the results of its poll to encourage the state Legislature to pass a package of bills that includes a ban on outdoor tobacco advertising near schools and child care centers, and a ban on cigarette vending machines.
  
  
• 05/15/98 VIRGINIA: No Quit In Youth Smokers The (DC Area) Journal
  
  In the lingo they are called "jacks," the Newports and Marlboro Lights that some students at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria puff on during lunch breaks and between periods. . . "Kids are going to keep smoking, no matter what," said Tony, 18, a senior at the school who said he goes through a pack of Newports about every 2 days. "You can't stop it." They would feel the same way, Tony and his friends said, even if the price of a pack of cigarettes were to go up by $1.50 or more.
  
  
• 05/15/98 MICHIGAN: Teen Smokers Face Tickets: Birmingham To Begin Zero-tolerance Policy Detroit News
  
  Police have a warning for underage smokers: Put the butts out or face criminal prosecution. Officers will begin a zero tolerance policy this month, and plan to ticket every underage smoker they find with cigarettes.
  
  
• 05/18/98 NORTH CAROLINA: New Class Tries to Warn Teens off Smoking AP/Raleigh News & Observer
  
  But students at North Davidson High School can take a smoking-cessation class for four days in an effort to learn more about the effects of smoking and how to beat the addiction to nicotine. Brandon, 15, is a freshman who began smoking when he was 8. Now, he usually has five cigarettes before he gets to school. . . The effort to stop underage smoking runs into some unique issues here. Some students' parents are tobacco farmers or work for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco. Many have parents who smoke. . . North Davidson's program was spread to the rest of the county's schools this year, and smoking-cessation classes are catching on statewide. The teenagers, however, say they think that the government is losing this battle.
  
  
• 05/18/98 MISSOURI: Rules Governing Tobacco For Minors Are Tightened St. Louis Post-Dispatch
  
  The BRENTWOOD Board of Aldermen has tightened the restrictions on the use of tobacco products by people younger than 18.
  
  
• 05/18/98 TEXAS: ALVIN Cuts Teen Tobacco Use With Crackdown, Classroom Houston Chronicle
  
  For the past two years, getting busted in Alvin could just as easily have meant being caught with a cigarette, a can of Skoal or maybe just a lighter or an empty, crumpled cigarette pack. Possession of any of the above by someone under 18 means a trip to tobacco education class.
  
  
• 05/18/98 COLORADO: Students Took A Deep Breath And Launched A Crusade Denver Post
  
  Class at West High located the enemy and used government to try to curb smoking
  
  
• 05/18/98CALIFORNIA: Outstanding In Their Fields Contra Costa (CA) Times
  
  TEN WOMEN received their due Saturday at the third annual Women of Achievement awards . . . Science and Health Care Merit winners: . . . Lisa Bautista-Rivera of Pittsburg, youth coordinator for Contra Costa County's Tobacco Prevention Project's TIGHT (Tobacco Industry Gets Hammered by Teens)
  
  
• 05/17/98 FLORIDA: New Anti-smoking Ads Tell Teens They're Targets LA Times/Seattle Times
  
  But what would happen if young smokers saw themselves not as cool but as targets? As pawns, cynically manipulated in a corporate chess game? What if the brand they chose was not Marlboro or Camel but Truth? Those are the questions that may be answered over the next two years in Florida as the state begins to spend $50 million of Big Tobacco's money to pay for a teen-directed, guerrilla-style advertising campaign designed to reverse the rising rate at which young people are taking up cigarettes, cigars and chewing tobacco.
  
  
• 05/17/98 KENTUCKY: Teens Say Nothing Can Stop Smoking Lexington (KY) Herald Leader
  
  
• 05/20/98 Disputed Statistics Fuel Politics in Youth Smoking The New York Times (This article was entered into the Congressional Record during Senate debate 05/20/98
  
  But only a few studies have tried to analyze how steps like price increases and bans on advertising affect youth smoking. And those have often produced contradictory results.
  
  
• 05/20/98 ARIZONA: Tobacco In The '90s Arizona Daily Star
  
  Her chamber is part of what is planned as a traveling exhibit, "TOBACCO, Reality and Images in the '90s," a collection of Canyon Del Oro High School student artwork that sends a strong message about the dangers of smoking.
  
  
• 05/20/98 NORTH CAROLINA: Winners: Smoking Students Graph in "If 'Seinfeld' Wasn't Funny" The Wall Street Journal (pay registration)
  
  A high school in Welcome, N.C., the heart of tobacco land, offers students caught smoking a three-day smoking-cessation class instead of detention.
  
  
• 05/19/98 Kids and Cigs: Like Moths to a Flame Fact sheet for kids, parents. Washington Post
  
  For You to Do Resisting pressure to smoke can be tough. Try rehearsing your reasons to refuse by role-playing with classmates or parents. There's a long list of reasons not to start smoking in the column above.
  
  
• 05/19/98 KENTUCKY: New Campaign to Fight Youth Smoking Launched in Kentucky PR Newswire
  
  Today marks the official launch in Kentucky of a unique partnership between the American Lung Association and the Humana Foundation to bring the Teens Against Tobacco Use (T.A.T.U.) program to thousands of students. Kerri Strug, an Olympic hero, headlines the kickoff event at Watterson Elementary School in Louisville.
  
  
• 05/19/98 ILLINOIS: HARVARD: Council To Vote On Plan To License Tobacco Sellers Chicago Tribune
  
  
• 05/21/98 MASSACHUSETTS: Tobacco Sales Called Key To Convenience Stores AP/Boston Globe
  
  Sales of tobacco products are crucial to the convenience stores that can be found in every corner of the state, business groups said as they argued against new rules on tobacco sales. Attorney General Scott Harshbarger wants to set regulations under the state's consumer protection laws to keep youths from getting cigarettes and to require warnings on cigars.
  
  
• 05/21/98 OHIO: DRAKE Would Set Age To Buy Tobacco At 21 Cleveland Plain Dealer
  
  The Republican senator - who quit smoking a week and a half ago - yesterday announced she had introduced a bill that will require retailers to get special licenses to sell cigarettes and other tobacco products.
• 05/21/98 Bill Would Make It Illegal To Buy Tobacco Until Age 21 Columbus Dispatch
• 05/21/98 Bill Would Raise The Age To Buy Cigarettes To 21 AP/Akron Beacon Journal
• 05/21/98 Bill Seeks To Raise Smoking Age Akron Beacon Journal
  
  
• 05/21/98 MISSOURI: BRENTWOOD: Board Tightens Guidelines On Tobacco-use By Minors St. Louis Post-Dispatch
  
  
• 05/21/98 NEBRASKA: Council Passes Tobacco Possession Ordinance KHAS, Hastings, NE/MSNBC
  
  Monday the Grand Island City Council passed and ordinance to discourage teens from smoking. The legislation, started by teens from various Grand Island high schools, makes it illegal to have tobacco products if you are underage. . . The law should be in effect for the next school year.
  
  
• 05/21/98 SOUTH DAKOTA: Lighting Up KDLT, Sioux Falls/MSNBC
  
  Are your kids lighting up? Well chances are pretty good that they have. 44- percent of South Dakota's high school students have smoked a cigarette in the past month
  
  
• 05/22/98 Teen-agers And Risks Repost of Oct. 6, 1997 article. Mayo Clinic/CNN
  
  But now an enormous research project offers a new perspective on high-risk behavior by adolescents -- a perspective that comes from the teen-agers themselves. The study concludes that the most effective way to protect young people from unhealthy or dangerous behaviors is for parents to be involved in their lives.
  
  
• 05/22/98 MAINE: Teen-age Smokers Describe Tobacco's Grip Portland Press-Herald
  
  
• 05/24/98 Can Pols Really Stop Teens From Smoking? A Hard Look At What Does And Doesn't Work June 1, 1998 US News
  
  
  
• 05/24/98 ILLINOIS: Teens Entrusted With Smokeless Mission Chicago Tribune
  
  The "Teens Against Tobacco Use" program was developed by the American Cancer Society, American Lung Association and American Heart Association. It designates teenagers as its tobacco-free messengers because impressionable students are more likely to listen to kids a few years older than them rather than "out-of-touch" adults. "Younger students look up to high school students," said Christine Mitchell, director of prevention services at Renz.
  
  
• 05/21/98 PREVIEW: WMMR: "WORLD NO-TOBACCO DAY" and "SELECTED CIGARETTE SMOKING INITIATION AND QUITTING BEHAVIORS AMONG HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS" CDC. This is an abstract. You can get a 241k pdf file of the report here No text file is provided(!)
  
  
• 05/21/98 White House, CDC Release New Statistics on Teen Smoking US Newswire
• 05/22/98 Most Teen Smokers Try To Break Habit Richmond Times-Dispatch
  
  In a survey of more than 16,000 students nationwide, nearly 73 percent with a daily habit said they had tried to quit. But only 13.5 percent stopped, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. The study shows "that kids not only start as teens but also want to quit as teens," said Michael Eriksen
• 05/21/98 A Third Of Teen Smokers Develop Habit Reuters
• 05/21/98 U.S. says daily smoking starts in high school Reuters
  
  "The process of experimentation, addiction, desire to quit, trying to quit, and failure, for the most part, all occurs before high school graduation . . This little tragedy plays its course before high school graduation, and then it repeats itself over the years . . . We're really not well-prepared to help kids who have become addicted and want to quit. We have very little to offer in the way of cessation services that are effective with young people," [Erickson] said.
• 05/21/98 U.S. Tracks Teen Smoking Habits AP
  
  In a survey of more than 16,000 students nationwide, nearly 36 percent who had ever smoked said their smoking escalated to at least a cigarette per day, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Nearly 73 percent with a daily habit said they had tried to quit. But only 13.5 percent successfully stopped, the CDC said. "That's strictly a testimony to the power of nicotine," said Michael Eriksen, director of the CDC's Office of Smoking and Health. "We were really struck by how this little drama of tobacco addiction really is completely played out before high school graduation."
• 05/21/98 CDC: 1 in 3 High Schoolers Smoke AP
  
  One in three high school students who try smoking even once develop a daily habit before they graduate, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday. Like Ledford, most high school smokers say they've tried to quit. And most fail. "It's a very bad habit, it's so incredibly addictive," Ledford said. "The first thing you notice is you start to want one really bad when you don't have one."
  
  
• 05/26/98 More Teens Just Say Yes to Smoking Washington Times Weekly
  
  "I used to run track, but I can't anymore because I can't breathe."
  
  
• 05/24/98 Can Pols Really Stop Teens From Smoking? A Hard Look At What Does And Doesn't Work June 1, 1998 US News
  
  
• 05/28/98 WISCONSIN: 1997 YOUTH RISK BEHAVIOR SURVEY - Tobacco April, 1998
  
  
• 05/28/98 FLORIDA: Summit On Teen Smoking Set For Saturday In Naples Naples Daily News
  
  Heads up, teen smokers: About 100 or more of your peers will be gathering Saturday to develop strategies to get you to quit smoking and to prevent other teens from taking up the habit. A daylong Teen Tobacco Summit in Naples is bringing teens together from middle and high school levels to learn the facts about smoking and its effects.
  What, Where When
  
  
• 05/28/98 UTAH: CENTERVILLE Stores Put Cigarettes Behind Counter Salt Lake Tribune
  
  Teen smoking just got tougher in Centerville, and juvenile offenders have only their peers to thank. At the request of Centerville's Youth City Council, the city has passed an ordinance requiring retailers to keep cigarettes and chewing tobacco locked away behind counters to reduce the threat of shoplifting.
  
  
• 05/27/98 WISCONSIN: Teens Find Tobacco Promotion Near Schools, Playgrounds AP
  
  Businesses near playgrounds, schools and day care centers had 22 percent more tobacco advertisements than other retail establishments, a survey by teen-agers says. The researchers found " candy next to chewing tobacco at one store and that sends a clear message to kids, " Al Bliss, health educator for the La Crosse County Health Department, said. The survey was conducted Feb. 28 by Teens Against Tobacco Use. The report says 58 percent of tobacco retail establishments had tobacco advertisements next to candy and at a level of 3 feet or below.
  
  
• 05/27/98 MICHIGAN: Clearing The Air; High School Students Reaching Out To Help Youngsters Avoid Tobacco (Jackson, MI) Citizen-Patriot
  
  "They're starting to smoke at younger and younger ages, it's scary," said Browning, a junior at Jackson High School. "If I can stop just one from starting, then that's great." Browning helped form an anti-smoking group at Jackson High called TATU - Teens Against Tobacco Use. A national organization, TATU is a group for teens who want to help spread the anti-smoking message. They do so by visiting elementary schools and talking about the dangers of smoking. The three-week program runs for an hour once a week
  
  
• 05/27/98 MINNESOTA: Washington County Hopes New Law Will Help Reduce Teen-age Smoking St. Paul Pioneer Press
  
  The ordinance bans tobacco vending machines and single-pack self-service sales, and it requires clerks who sell tobacco to be age 18 or older. Despite these restrictions, no one spoke against the measure at a public hearing Tuesday. . . The new rules take effect July 1 if the board gives final approval on June 2
  
  
• 05/28/98 OPINION: Raising Cigarette Price Unlikely To Stop Teens Elizabeth Auster, Cleveland Plain Dealer
  
  Now, looking back, I think he might have been more effective if he had been more strategic - if he had focused less on convincing me that smoking was unwise and unhealthy, and more on convincing me that it was uncool. . . My advice to federal officials: If you want to discourage smoking, focus on what really attracts people to cigarettes. Try getting the respect of the people you want to influence, instead of their money.
  
  
• 05/29/98 PENNSYLVANIA: N. Allegheny Oks Smoking Rules Meeting Briefs, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
  
  The NORTH ALLEGHENY SCHOOL BOARD is clearing the air on its smoking policy. The board voted unanimously Wednesday in favor of two tobacco policies that make the district smoke-free during the day and beef up punishment for students caught smoking. . . The second policy brings the district in line with a state law that sets a fine of $50 for students caught with tobacco products on school grounds at any time.
  
  
• 05/29/98 MINNESOTA: ROSEVILLE: Briefing St. Paul Pioneer Press
  
  4 tobacco sellers to be cited Four of Roseville's 48 licensed tobacco sellers will be ticketed for selling tobacco products to minors this month in the latest round of compliance checks, Roseville police said Thursday. Last year retailers achieved 100 percent compliance in the first round of checks, but five establishments failed the second round, Deputy Chief Tom Alleva said.
  
  
• 05/29/98 CALIFORNIA: Students Push For Self-service Tobacco Ban LA Times
  
  Armed with a slew of statistics about teenage smoking, a group of Estancia High School students hope to persuade the City Council to enact a ban on self-service tobacco displays in local stores. Spurred by an anti-smoking campaign sponsored by the Camp Fire Boys and Girls of Orange County, called Speak Out, the students enlisted their teachers, administrators, friends and family members to write letters to local officials urging them to establish the ban.
  
  
• 05/30/98 COLORADO: New Law Strengthens Youth Tobacco Prohibition Enforcement Business Wire
  
  COLORADO GOV. ROY ROMER will sign House Bill 1387, which changes the way the state enforces the prohibition against selling tobacco products to persons under the age of 18, on June 1. . . The new law changes the penalty from a criminal (class 2 petty offense) to a civil penalty and process, and also designates the liquor enforcement division in the Department of Revenue as the lead state enforcement agency.
  
  
• 05/31/98 FLORIDA: Teens Take A Stand Against Smokes At Tobacco Summit
  
  More than 60 teen-agers stood on their chairs Saturday and told off Big Tobacco - with their own big shouts and screams. "Smoking kills. Dip does too. We won't do it. How about you?" The COLLIER COUNTY TEEN TOBACCO SUMMIT held at the Telford Auditorium in Naples brought together young people from local middle and high schools to learn about smoking and its effects - from each other.
  
  
• 06/01/98 RHODE ISLAND: Teens Underestimate Risk Of Addiction To Cigarettes Providence Journal Bulletin
  
  Smoking by young people in Rhode Island is rising as subtle tobacco ads associate glamour and fitness with cigarettes.
  
  
• 06/01/98 NEW JERSEY: Measure Would Ban Smokeless Tobacco In Schools AP
  
  With cigarettes already banned in public schools throughout New Jersey, lawmakers now are going after another nicotine no-no: smokeless tobacco. A measure approved by the Assembly Health Committee Monday would ban smokeless tobacco from public schools.
  
  
• 06/01/98 MISSOURI: Teen Smoking Is Targeted: Black Leaders Want Tobacco Billboard Ban St. Louis Post-Dispatch
  
  African-American religious leaders called on Sunday for a ban on tobacco billboards near homes, schools, churches and wellness and recreation centers in the city. The ST. LOUIS CLERGY COALITION, representing 13 denominations and more than 47,000 parishioners, wants the St. Louis Board of Aldermen to pass an ordinance banning the billboards in residential areas.
  
  
• 06/01/98 MISSOURI: Teens Could Pay Penalty Under Bill St. Louis Post-Dispatch
  
  Cities and counties could get tough with teen-age smokers under a bill awaiting the governor's signature. The proposal would allow municipal court charges to be filed against youths under 18 who were caught possessing or using tobacco products. . . Rep. Michael Gibbons, R-Kirkwood, added the municipal court provision to a bill dealing with the judiciary. He said it would give local officials a new way to discourage smoking by children. Attorney General Jay Nixon agreed, calling the bill "an important step forward." He noted that children are barred from buying cigarettes. "Winking at that law has put Missouri in a situation where we're above the national average in high school kids who use tobacco," he said.
  
  
• 06/01/98 INDIANA: Rural Youths Drink, Smoke More, Study Says Indianapolis Star/News
  
  Stronger public-private partnerships and better coordination of rural health care efforts are needed to curb the use of alcohol, tobacco and illicit drugs by Indiana's rural youths. . . The RURAL INDIANA PROFILE was prepared by DRUG STRATEGIES, a nonprofit policy research institute based in Washington, D.C. The study was begun at the request of U.S. REP. LEE HAMILTON, D-Ind., because he was worried about drug use in rural Indiana.
  
  
• 06/01/98 ARIZONA: Anti-smoking Campaign Targets Teen Moviegoers Arizona Daily Star
  
  "Popular culture, whether it's music or the movies, has a tremendous influence on the youth of America," said Brad Christensen, communications director for the Arizona Department of Health Services. . . The anti-tobacco ads, which will play in 50 Arizona theaters, will slip in between the trivia questions of pre-film slide shows. The department plans to have the advertisements premiered around the state by today, Christensen said. The movie-house move, which includes attacks on the portrayal of cigarettes and chewing tobacco in movies, is the latest step in the state's $50 million effort to stamp out teen smoking.
• 06/01/98 Local Bus Stops To Sport Anti-smoking Message Arizona Daily Star
  
  Anti-smoking groups FULL COURT PRESS and TOBACCO-FREE WAYS announced yesterday that 50 Tucson bus benches will feature local artists' interpretations of the theme: "For Youth by Youth, Seeking a Solution Not to Choose."
  
  
• 06/02/98 1st Issue of THE YOUTH CONNECTION Released by INSTITUTE FOR YOUTH DEVELOPMENT; Publication Explores `Connections that Affect Choices of America's Youth' PR Newswire
  
  "During more than a decade of work in the AIDS issue with children and families, we witnessed the devastation of a lot of fine people ... (and) realized first-hand that behaviors which put young people at risk for HIV and other STDs were interrelated. Simply attacking one behavior neither fully resolved it, nor significantly impacted any others." So writes SHEPHERD SMITH, founder and president of the Institute for Youth Development (IYD), in the inaugural issue of THE YOUTH CONNECTION. "Consequently, we felt a comprehensive message, targeting the main areas of risk behavior for youth today -- alcohol, drugs, sex, tobacco, and violence -- was imperative. We also saw a need for a consistent message: risk avoidance across the board. No mixed messages."
  
  
• 06/02/98 TEXAS: WACO: Police Issue 28 Tobacco Citations Waco Tribune-Herald
  
  In their first week of tobacco compliance enforcement, Waco police issued 28 tickets to stores caught in violation of the state's tough new tobacco laws. Two teams of Waco police officers began intensive tobacco enforcement during the Memorial Day weekend, initiating a number of sting operations targeting the more than 120 convenience stores licensed to sell tobacco products in the city.
  
  
• 06/03/98 CALIFORNIA: Orange County Chapter Of The Public Relations Society Of America Wraps Its Arms Around Community Youth Not as scary as it sounds. PR Newswire
  
  The Orange County chapter of the Public Relations Society of America is demonstrating its dedication to community relations by engaging in a two-part public service program focused on community youth: CAMPAIGN FOR TOBACCO-FREE KIDS, and Orange County On Track. OC/PRSA will dedicate its time and professional know-how to teach both youth advocate groups the skills involved in achieving successful campaigns.
  
  
• 06/04/98 Vice President Gore To Host Youth Tobacco Roundtable US Newswire
  
  Vice President Gore will host a roundtable discussion with children and teens on tobacco. WHERE: The White House, The Roosevelt Room WHEN: Friday, June 5, 12:30-1:30 p.m. (EST)
  
  
• 06/04/98 ILLINOIS: RICHMOND: Village Board May Strengthen Law Against Teenage Smokers Chicago Tribune
  
  The Richmond Village Board is working on an ordinance that would make it tougher for teens to smoke within the village borders. Board members Wednesday night reviewed a draft ordinance that would make it illegal for anyone under age 18 to possess tobacco products outside the home. It was tabled, and the board is expected to take it up again at a meeting June 17.
  
  
• 06/04/98 CALIFORNIA: Fair rewards children for taking DARE LA Times
  
  An estimated 2,000 Newport-Mesa elementary school students who learned about dangers of drug participate in event at OCC.
  
  
• 06/04/98 VIRGINIA: Smoking Out Sales to Minors Washington Post
  
  Teenagers participating in a project to monitor cigarette sales to minors in Loudoun County found that they were able to make purchases in 13 of the 51 stores they visited. The survey, supervised by Loudoun's Office on Youth, was designed to educate store clerks and the community, county officials said.
  
  
• 06/04/98 WASHINGTON: MARYSVILLE Adopts Anti-tobacco Rule [Everett, WA] Daily Herald
  
  [A] new city ordinance takes effect June 11. The ordinance, which incorporates state legislation passed earlier this year, prohibits minors from possessing cigarettes and other tobacco products. Those caught carrying tobacco could face a $50 fine, four hours of community service and an order to enroll in a smoking cessation class.
• 06/04/98 City Adopts Anti-tobacco Rule AP
  
• 06/06/98 FLORIDA: Student's Message Leaps Out Florida Times-Union
  
  Frogs and cigarettes are an unlikely combination. But not for 11-year-old Holly Ballinger, who used the two as inspiration to design her anti-smoking poster and won first prize for the state of Florida. The fifth-grade student from Kings Trail Elementary School won a trip to Kansas City, Mo., with a family member, where her poster will be judged among other states' winners as part of the Tar Wars National Education Program. . . At the top it said, "If you don't want to croak, don't smoke."
  
  
• 06/05/98 Gore, Teens Talk of Smoking Hazards AP
  
  About 30 students met with Gore to discuss their experiences with school anti-tobacco programs and suggested why some teens start smoking. Just watching a friend smoke can persuade some teens to pick up a cigarette, said Amanda Tunnell, 16, of Oklahoma City. "It's as simple as that," she said. "It's just like another action that they did, like something they wear, something they buy that you want to go and do that because you want to be accepted."
  
  
• 06/08/98 NEW YORK: Empire State Roll Call Report Business First of Buffalo
  
  Bill S1931. Sponsor: LIBOUS Prohibits any person under the age of 18 from possessing tobacco in any form, including cigarettes, cigars, pipe tobacco and "smokeless" tobacco. Sanctions for any minor violating the law include a maximum fine of $50, community service, and attendance at a course of instruction concerning the dangers of tobacco use.
  
  
• 06/08/98 VIRGINIA: It's Anyone's Guess Whether Va. Youths Smoke More, Less Or Same Richmond Times-Dispatch
  
  "We're flying blind," said LAURA WIMMER, director of youth health education at the Virginia Council of the American Cancer Society. "It's very frustrating." The frustration dates back to 1994 when WILLIAM C. BOSHER JR., who then was Virginia's superintendent of public instruction, opted out of a national survey of youth behaviors conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Bosher today is superintendent of Chesterfield County schools.) The YOUTH RISK BEHAVIOR SURVEY polled 16,262 students across the United States in 1997. It asked questions about drinking, smoking, sexual conduct, domestic violence and the use of seat belts.
  
  
• 06/09/98 OHIO: CLEVELAND: White Says Illegal Tobacco Sales Down Cleveland Plain-Dealer
  
  Almost two years after Cleveland started cracking down on merchants who sell cigarettes to minors by holding "tobacco sweeps," Mayor MICHAEL R. WHITE said yesterday that the program had significantly reduced the number of illegal tobacco sales. During the first sweep in August 1996, 58 percent of the stores where teens tried to buy cigarettes sold to them. In the fourth sweep - the week of April 28 - only about 25 percent, or 32 of 127 vendors, sold cigarettes to minors, White said.
  
  
• 06/09/98 Seattle Youth to Demonstrate New Teen Health Website: Business Wire
  
  http://weber.u.washington.edu/~ecttp Several Seattle high school students will launch a new web site dedicated to teen health issues Tuesday. . . I think the site will be a valuable resource for teens," said Adam Percival, a Garfield student who participated in the sites development. "For example, in the section I worked on, they could get a lot of facts about tobacco and learn how tobacco companies manipulate young people into smoking."
  
  
• 06/11/98 CALIFORNIA: SANTA ROSA: Smokers Must Take New Class On Health
  
  The Santa Rosa City Schools board Wednesday night approved the program, which requires first-time and repeat offenders to take a four-hour class conducted by the Drug Abuse Alternatives Center. Staff members with the drug-abuse center will provide continuing support to help students quit using tobacco products.
  
  
• 06/16/98 NEW JERSEY: HADDON TWP. Plans Tough Tobacco Law Philadelphia Inquirer
  
  The Board of Commissioners introduced an ordinance last night that would make it illegal for anyone under the age of 18 to possess any form of tobacco products, including smokeless tobacco.
  
  
• 06/15/98 OHIO: Too Many Alternatives Cleveland Plain Dealer
  
  The first year at the LORAIN COUNTY ALTERNATIVE SCHOOL was tumultuous. . . In the school's first year, just ended, two students dumped a classmate into a trash can. Two others broke into the teachers' lounge and stole $20 from a staff member. A lack of structure, intended to help students who rebel against rules, actually left room for shouting, smoking and fighting, all of the problems the school was trying to address.
  
  
• 06/14/98 MICHIGAN: REESE Teacher Rewards Class For Quitting Bay City Times
  
  "Ms. Smith helped me drop the habit before it got too bad," said Kasey A. Gruber, 16, one of 12 students in Smith's sociology class at Reese High School in Tuscola County. Four of the students in March quit smoking after Smith offered the whole class a reward - such as a pizza party or ice cream sundaes - for every 15 days the smokers avoided cigarettes. On June 4, the last day of school, Smith bought the class breakfast after each of the four went smoke-free for 90 days.
  
  
• 06/11/98 LETTERS: From the Mailbag -- Teens on Smoking; The Limits of a Law NY Newsday
  
• 06/17/98 WASHINGTON COUNTY To Take Another Look At Tobacco Law St. Paul Pioneer Press
  
  On Tuesday, Commissioner Dennis Hegberg asked the county's health department to re-examine the language that prohibits minors from selling cigars, cigarettes and chewing tobacco and to look at a possible date for another public hearing on the issue. . . "I've had numerous calls from employers," Abrahamson said during the county board meeting Tuesday morning at the Washington County Government Center. "We're talking about the possibility of hundreds of (young people) losing jobs. I think it's something we goofed up on. We never intended anyone to lose their job. I think we should at least have another hearing."
  
  
• 06/17/98 UK: Adverts Do Have Effect, Say Young Smokers Electronic Telegraph
  
  TEENAGE smokers admit that they are influenced by cigarette advertising and tobacco industry sponsorship of sport, a survey says. The study of the lives of more than 37,000 children aged nine to 16 found that 71 per cent of those who described themselves as occasional smokers said they were swayed by advertising. More than a third of the smokers said that advertising had "quite a lot" of influence on their decision to smoke. The findings, contained in the annual Young People survey conducted by Exeter University, will intensify the debate on tobacco advertising and sponsorship.
  
  
• 06/17/98 Teen Life On The Straight Edge Graph in Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
  
  All this, however, is only part of the rebellion. For the bands onstage and an overwhelming majority of the 130 youths in the room, the rest is a social credo as conservative as any fretful parent might relish. No booze. No tobacco. No drugs. No casual sex.
  
  
• 06/17/98 Girls Close Gender Gap in Ways Welcome and Worrying Washington Post
  
  Ruth Newlin of the American Lung Association said girls regularly use smoking to control their weight. She blames the increase in girls' smoking in part on increasingly aggressive marketing. Trinkets, such as charm bracelets, that some cigarette companies award to regular customers appeal to girls and not grown women.
• 06/17/98 Teen Girls Still Making Bad Health Choices Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
• 06/17/98 Teenage Girls Checkup Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
  
  Smoking: Girls are now as likely as boys to smoke cigarettes; more than one in five eighth-grade girls report that they smoke.
• 06/16/98 Progress Mixed for Teen Girls AP
  
  Life has gotten better in some ways for adolescent girls, who are doing better in school and having fewer babies, a report concludes. But many problems remain: Girls are smoking more, are often depressed and are playing sports less often than they used to. "There have been great strides but there remains tremendous work to do," said Linda Basch, executive director of the National Council for Research on Women, which released its report Tuesday. . . The percentage of eighth-grade girls who smoke increased from 13 percent in 1991 to 21 percent in 1996.
  
  
• 06/16/98 AUDIO: Reducing Teen Smoking NPR
  
  As NPR's Vicky Que reports in the first of two stories for Morning Edition, government health officials say at this point no anti-smoking programs have proven successful or safe enough to be used on teens. And listen to part 2, in which NPR's Debbie Elliott reports that while public health officials say they need greater resources to fight the tobacco industry's marketing strategy that makes smoking seem glamorous, some researchers say the difficulty could be in the approach.
  
  
• 06/18/98 FDA Launches Home Page For Kids Reuters
  
  Kids have a new Internet home page designed to teach them about health -- the US Food and Drug Administration's "FDA Kids' Home Page." The website, which went on-line in May, covers a wide range of health-related topics, from the wonders of the human body to the reasons for using toothpaste. Visitors can read about the hazards of smoking . . .
  
  
• 06/18/98 CALIFORNIA: S.F. Teens Trying High-Nicotine `Bidi' Cigarettes San Francisco Chronicle
  
  The cigarettes, called "bidis" -- also "beedies" and "beadies" -- are manufactured in India and are widely available in grocery stores in paper-wrapped bundles of 20 for as little as $1.25 a pack. Results show that 58 percent of students surveyed at four city high schools had tried bidis at least once and that two-thirds knew someone under the legal age of 18 who had purchased them.
  
  
• 06/18/98 DC: Students Fighting Drugs With Store Posters; ANACOSTIA Campaign Seeks to Reduce Sale of Paraphernalia, Tobacco, Cheap Liquor
  
  Thomas Gore, a vice president of the Anacostia Coordinating Council, said the group is "trying to improve this community by reducing the sale of drug paraphernalia, alcohol, tobacco and loose cigarettes to students."
  
  
• 06/19/98 NEW JERSEY: Assembly Bill Would Punish Teenagers Caught With Tobacco Bergen (NJ) Record
  
  "Our hope is that by outlawing underage smoking we will be able to reduce the number of teens who currently smoke and dramatically reduce the number of teens who would have begun to smoke," said Assemblyman Joseph Suliga, D-Union, co-sponsor of the legislation with Assemblyman Guy Gregg, R-Morris. "We cannot accept the status quo. We cannot sit back and allow children to fall prey to this deadly addiction."
  
  
• 06/19/98 FLORIDA: Anti-tobacco Ads Show Teens Bitter Truth Miami Herald
  
  The dangers of tobacco are being proclaimed on billboards, radio, television and in print in a $50 million, two-year youth anti-smoking drive. The money comes from last August's $11.3 billion settlement between Florida and tobacco companies. Each medium in the campaign carries a different type of message. But the billboards, which first appeared in Miami-Dade this month, are raising some eyebrows. Using statistics compiled by the campaign, they show on a scoreboard that there were 430,700 tobacco-related deaths in 1995, compared with 43,363 auto fatalities, 43,115 AIDS-related deaths and 22,895 murders for that year.
  
  
• 06/20/98 OHIO: Buying Smokes Is Easy For Teens
  
  An under-age teen who tries to buy cigarettes in Hamilton County has about a one in three chance of succeeding, according to a new survey. Restaurants and drug stores appear to be the easiest places for youths under 18 to buy tobacco products; convenience stores and gas stations are among the toughest locations to buy the items. The Norwood Health Department and Hamilton County General Health District released the findings Thursday on results of a random test of how well businesses are following laws that forbid the sale of tobacco products to minors.
  
  
• 06/19/98 UK: Age Cards To Stub Out Child Smokers The Mercury (Herts & Essex Newspapers)
  
  BUYING cigarettes could become harder for under-age smokers in Cambridgeshire. Trading standards chiefs say teenagers will have to carry proof of age cards in a bid to clamp down on illegal tobacco use by under-16s. Mug shots, a date of birth and a 16-plus logo may feature on the passes. The idea was agreed at a Cambs County Council environment and transport committee meeting last Thursday, and could be in place by next year.
  
  
• 06/21/98 FLORIDA: Tobacco Settlements Now Funding The Fight Against Underage Smoking WBBH NBC 2 Fort Myers, FL/MSNBC
  
  Millions of dollars in settlements with big tobacco are now paying local police to go after kids who smoke. Part of Governor Chiles' anti-smoking campaign is that local agencies simply have to sign on with the state, and the money is theirs. However, one sheriff's office is saying no to the program.
  
  
• 06/21/98 MICHIGAN: Teen-agers' Penchant To Puff Threatens To Send Their Future Up In Smoke Grand Rapids Press
  
  "I thought I could quit any time I wanted," Bechtold says. "I can't." "When I was 14 I tried to quit. That lasted three days. Every other month I try to quit."
  
  
• 06/22/98 MICHIGAN: Cops Plan Tobacco, Beer Stings Detroit News
  
  Wayne County Sheriff Robert Ficano said police in Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Washtenaw and Monroe counties plan to meet today with leaders of the Associated Food Dealers of Michigan to discuss the program designed to cut teen tobacco and alcohol use. "We want a working partnership, an understanding of the law," Ficano said.
  
  
• 06/24/98 ILLINOIS: State Contracts With FDA To Reduce Tobacco Sales To Minors AP
  
  Retailers who sell cigarettes to minors may have some surprises in store for them in the coming months. State officials plan some 9,000 unannounced inspections of stores during the next 18 months, using underage shoppers trying to buy tobacco products, the Illinois Liquor Control Commission said Tuesday.
  
  
• 06/25/98 Teen Sees Will To Quit Go Up In Smoke Denver Post
  
  Jeff Eastridge stands at ground zero in the tobacco wars: He is 15, and he smokes. He has heard and read just enough to know that - on the surface, at least - it's all about him: the congressional skirmishing, the presidential posturing, the advertising dollars Big Tobacco plowed into public debate on last week's failed legislation to curb teen smoking. He sees the big picture. But he lives the little one.
  
  
• 06/25/98 OHIO: CHILLICOTHE'S Controversial Tobacco Law To Get Second Vote WCMH/MSNBC
  
  The Council voted 4-3 Monday to make it illegal for minors to buy, possess or use tobacco products in the city. But two city council members were not present for the vote, so the measure will have to be voted on again.
• 06/24/98 Chillicothe Adopts Tough Underage Smoking Measure WCMH Columbus, OH/MSNBC
  
  the City Council has made it illegal for minors to buy, possess or use tobacco products. The Council passed the measure 4-3 Monday night. . . Chillicothe Police Chief Jeff Keener says the city passed the law because before its passage, officers couldn't do anything to minors caught smoking. Keener says the law will allow officers to take the cigarettes away and notify a minor's parents that their child was caught smoking.
  
  
• 06/28/98 FLORIDA: 'Tobacco Police' Aim To Snuff Out Teen Smoking Naples Daily News
  
  Naples Police officer Ed Principe hands out two tickets to underage smokers at the Coastland Center mall Saturday. The undercover police officers catch teen smokers lighting up and issue a court summons where they may be fined $25 or ordered to do 16 hours of community service. Cameron Gillie/Staff
  
  
• 06/28/98 FLORIDA: Children Tell State How To Reach Children With Anti-tobacco Message Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
  
  The state of Florida received some marketing tips from 250 young people on Saturday about how to sell an anti-smoking message to other youths. "We know what young people want to see -- more youth talking to youth," said Senikkie Shaw, 17, of Okeechobee. "It's got to be in a language that kids understand." . . These insights were offered at the FLORIDA PILOT PROGRAM ON TOBACCO CONTROL MINORITY EXPO at Florida International University on Saturday.
  
  
• 06/29/98 SOUTH DAKOTA, COLORADO, HAWAII: New Summer Laws Crack Down on Teens AP
  
  South Dakota is raising the penalty for minors caught smoking from $20 to $200, and Colorado is doubling its $50 fine for teen-agers caught buying tobacco. Hawaii is raising its fines for people who sell tobacco to minors.
  
  
• 06/29/98 SPORTS: BASEBALL: Name Also Team's Message Lexington (KY) Herald Leader
  
  The boys on both sides yelled out their team name as they broke from the pre-game huddle: "Tornadoes!" "Smoking Kills!" Anti-smoking groups have been pushing that message for years, but now Mike Sawyer has put it where it may never have been before -- the baseball jerseys of 11- and 12-year-old boys. In a state that produces more burley tobacco than any other and has the highest adult and youth smoking rates in America, that's a curveball.
  
  
• 06/29/98 KENTUCKY: New Miss Kentucky Vows To Speak Out On Minors Smoking Lexington (KY) Herald Leader
  
  Add another tiara and another scholarship to Chera-Lyn Cook's extensive collection. Cook, 22, was crowned Miss Kentucky on Saturday night . . . As Miss Kentucky, she'll travel to scores of schools to speak out against under-age smoking.
  
  
• 06/30/98 CONNECTICUT: Town Approves Ban On Youth Smoking In Public Places AP
  
  The town has approved an ordinance that makes it a violation for anyone under 18 to light up in public. But the police department is less than enthusiastic about enforcing the ban. During a special meeting Monday night, the town selectmen voted 5-2 to approve the ban, the first of its kind in the state.
  
  
• 07/02/98 TEXAS: SAN ANTONIO: Police Launch Sting On Tobacco Sales San Antonio Express News
  
  San Antonio vice squad officers -- with the help of several teens acting as decoys -- are conducting a "sting" operation aimed at enforcing state and federal laws prohibiting the sale of cigarettes to people under age 18. Police officers went into 11 stores Wednesday. "Of the 11 locations we went to, six sold cigarettes to the minors," Sgt. Ed Adame said.
  
  
• 07/01/98 TEXAS: New Program Drives Teens To Quit Smoking Amarillo Globe
  
  Texas Department of Health officials on Tuesday unveiled the state's first anti-tobacco billboard. The billboard, erected near a school in Austin, drives home the message that people younger than 18 can lose their licenses for purchasing, possessing or using tobacco products. . . Dr. Philip Huang, chief of TDH's Bureau of Chronic Disease Prevention and Control, said students who helped develop the state's "Tobacco Is a Dead End" campaign indicated they know about the hazards of smoking but aren't as concerned about the possibility of getting lung cancer in 20 years as they are about possibly losing their licenses.
  
  
• 07/01/98 TEXAS: Program Targets Tobacco Merchants Dallas Morning News
  
  In a series of stings Tuesday, Danny - wearing jeans, a polo shirt and a baseball cap - tried to buy cigarettes from cashiers. When he succeeded, vice officers cited the store and the employee who made the sale. "It is your responsibility to know who you're selling to," Senior Cpl. W.R. Martin told a cashier cited for selling a pack of Marlboros to Danny in an Oak Cliff Chevron station. "Be aware. We're making spot checks."
  
  
• 07/01/98 NEW YORK: Rough On Anti-Puff Ads (New York) Daily News
  
  New York spent more than $850,000 on anti-smoking commercials that are roundly criticized by experts and ridiculed by teenagers who are the targets of most anti-smoking ads. . . At worst, the experts said, the ads--one of which resembles a political campaign commercial--could actually encourage teens to smoke.
  
  
• 07/01/98 NEW YORK: Rudy: I'll Snuff Out Illegal Sales (New York) Daily News
  
  The mayor called for the crackdown in response to a Daily News investigation that revealed that thousands of stores across the city are selling cigarettes to minors and many of the worst offenders avoid punishment. . . Make new store owners responsibile for violations racked up by previous owners, making it difficult for unscrupulous vendors to escape punishment by flipping their licenses.
• 06/30/98 N.Y. Cigarette War Packs No Punch (New York) Daily News
  
  Thousands of stores across the city regularly sell cigarettes to children as young as 14 ‹ and toothless anti-tobacco laws do little to punish the worst offenders. . . That's because . . . city and state officials have failed to aggressively enforce laws that allow them to yank the licenses of vendors for repeat sales to minors. The efforts have been so anemic that, in a city where as many as half the stores sell tobacco to teens, not one is under license suspension.
• 06/30/98 Cash Is All Kids Need to Buy a Pack (New York) Daily News
  
  The store has been cited four times for illegal sales of cigarettes to teens. Twice, city officials have suspended its license to sell tobacco. But relatives and associates of the owner quickly applied for and received new licenses. Nydia asked for a pack of Marlboros. The clerk pushed them across the counter. "It's almost always that easy," said Nydia.
  
  
• 07/01/98MARYLAND: MONTGOMERY Attacks Tobacco Sales to Minors Washington Post
  
  The Montgomery County Council approved the use of county inspectors yesterday to enforce laws barring the sale of tobacco products to minors. An enforcement drive will start next week. The council voted 8 to 0, with William E. Hanna Jr. (D-Rockville) absent, to approve a proposal by County Executive Douglas M. Duncan (D) to allow the Board of License Commissioners to perform checks at nearly 900 retail outlets that sell tobacco products in Montgomery.
  
  
• 07/01/98 MARYLAND: TANEYTOWN: Small-town Police Beat Graph in Baltimore Sun
  
  Jammed parking meter in front of City Hall? Chief Melvin E. Diggs -- who spent 25 years as a patrolman, detective and administrator in Baltimore -- is ready to empty it or replace it himself. With serious crime so low, Diggs and his seven officers can enforce laws that his big-city counterparts often must ignore, such as underage smoking (15 arrests in May) and seat-belt violations (124 tickets in May).
  
  
• 07/04/98 CONNECTICUT: SEYMOUR: New Law Targets Teenage Smokers Hartford (CT) Courant
  
  When JOHN O'TOOLE took a drag on his first cigarette, he and the other 10-year-olds huddled around the singed butt got busted by the neighborhood busybody. Mrs. O'Mara came upon the little rebels and told every one of their parents. "She may very well have saved our lives," said O'Toole, now 36, and Seymour's first selectman. He is the driving force behind a new town ordinance that outlaws teen smoking in public and effectively makes every Seymour police officer a potential Mrs. O'Mara.
• 07/04/98 Teen Smoking Ban Is Tough, But Some Doubt Its Effectiveness AP
  
  A town law that prohibits teen-agers from smoking in public is the strictest local tobacco law in the state. But whether it will work - that is, stop young people from smoking - is another thing.
  
  
• 07/06/98 UTAH Opens a New Front in the War Against Teen Smoking Christian Science Monitor
  
  Utah's Tobacco Court is the first of its kind in the nation . . . [t]he creation of Joseph Anderson, a judge in Utah's Third District . . Tobacco Court will work out of small claims court with volunteer, pro-tem judges. They will have the authority to levy fines as much as $250, require community service, and send youths to smoking-education programs. If the teens thumb their noses at the law, they can have their driving privileges suspended. "Our emphasis is to push them toward education," says Anderson. Tobacco Court will use a program called STTOP - Stop Teen Tobacco
  
  
• 07/05/98 Critics Say Tobacco Laws Aimed At Kids Have Proven Ineffective Scripps Howard
  
  Rather than helping to prevent youth smoking, laws that penalize minors have provided a smoke screen for an orchestrated effort by tobacco manufacturers and retailers aimed at guaranteeing a continued flow of tobacco to kids, anti-smoking advocates say. The new laws actually make it harder for communities to effectively prevent tobacco sales to minors and may help shield tobacco companies and retailers from liability for their actions, these experts say. "This is all about shifting blame and shifting responsibility," said William Godshall, executive director of SmokeFree Pennsylvania. "It has always been the tobacco industry and the tobacco retailers that have been the leading proponents of this."
  
  
• 07/05/98 UK: Retailers Back Teenage ID Card PA
  
  Shopkeepers are backing a national identity card for teenagers in a drive to stamp out under-age purchase of alcohol, cigarettes, scratch cards, fireworks, videos and solvents. The Citizen Card, which would bear a photograph and a hologram, would be a voluntary scheme available to youngsters aged 12 and above. It will start at age 12 because that is the first threshold when a child needs to prove they are old enough to see 12-certificate films and videos.
  
  
• 07/04/98 Teens Today Start Smoking For The Same Reason Teens Always Have: Coolness Aurora, IL Beacon News/St. Louis Post-Dispatch
  
  "It's a lot more complicated than we originally thought," Palumbo said. The key is to somehow get kids to realize what adults eventually learn, said Palumbo, who was a teen smoker herself before she quit in her 20s. "You think you look so cool and grown up and in fact you look ridiculous."
  
  
• 07/04/98 SPORTS: BASEBALL: Kids' Jerseys Say `Smoking Kills' AP
  
  A sign in the dugout was made with discarded cigarette butts and spells out the name of the kids' baseball teams that Mike Sawyer helped organize: Smoking Kills. "It's a good way for kids to learn early that smoking's bad for your health," said Lonietta Foster, whose 12-year-old son Kevin plays on one of the Smoking Kills teams.
  
  
• 07/07/98 CALIFORNIA: Bill Would Restrict Youth Informants UPI
  
  The state Assembly has passed legislation that would restrict law enforcement officers from using underage informants _ a bill inspired by the murder of a teenager who had acted a police drug informant. . . An exception would permit 15- through 17-year-olds to be used to catch merchants who sell tobacco to minors.
  
  
• 07/08/98 MINNESOTA: Business opposes ban on minor clerks selling tobacco St. Paul Pioneer Press
  
  The Washington County Board of Commissioners revisited its new youth tobacco ordinance Tuesday afternoon but couldn't take any action on a proposed amendment to change the ordinance's language due to the lack of a quorum. . . Commissioner Mary Hauser said the County Board should not be revisiting the issue, as the board had held a public hearing on the ordinance and had passed it unanimously June 2. "We have just passed the ordinance, and as I recall, it was 5-0," she said. "I find no reason to change the language. I find it very difficult and totally embarrassing to throw our entire public hearing process out. I would be loath to bring it up again, just because one segment of the population has an economic concern. We went through a public process, and that process is very important."
  
  
• 07/08/98 Call For Grade School Anti-smoking Programs Reuters
  
  NEW YORK, Jul 08 (Reuters) --Anti-smoking campaigns aimed at children should begin as early as elementary school, researchers say. "The prevailing smoking prevention strategy, which concentrates resources on middle school prevention programs for adolescents, overlooks the needs of children who are at risk for habitual cigarette smoking," conclude investigators at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and Stanford University in Stanford, California.
• 07/06/98 Anti-Smoking Programs Should Start in Elementary School; Researchers Also Find Parents' Smoking as Important as Peer Pressure Health Education & Behavior PR, Center for the Advancement of Health
• 07/06/98 Study: Start Smoking Prevention Sooner UPI
  
  Researchers say certain children as young as 8 to 10 years old are at special risk of starting to smoke, and that for them, school anti-tobacco programs aimed at middle school students are too little, too late. A three-year study of 400 fourth, fifth and sixth graders finds the children at most risk are those whose parents smoke, and children who believe their parents don't care or know if they try cigarettes. Children who get lower grades at school, get into more fights, and have easier access to cigarettes at home also were found to be at special risk. The results are published in the August issue of Health Education and Behavior, a journal of the Society for Public Health Education.
  
  
• 07/07/98 OPINION: A Practical Way To Fight Teen Smoking Dick Morris, New York Post
  
  Last weekend, I conducted a national survey of 600 randomly distributed likely voters to test their attitudes on controlling teen smoking. I asked them to rate the effectiveness of various proposals to prevent teen smoking. "Licensing stores that sell cigarettes and revoking the licenses if they sell to teens" had the best score with, 60 percent predicting that it would be an effective way to curtail teen smoking. By 58 to 24 percent, smokers themselves felt that licensing would work to stop teen-agers from taking up the habit. "Banning cigarette ads and marketing aimed at teen-agers" had the second-best score, with 48 percent saying that it would be effective. Third best, at 43 percent, was "running ads urging teens not to smoke." Raising cigarette prices by $1.10 per pack and stopping tobacco ads from using characters like Joe Camel or the Marlboro Man were rejected as unlikely to curb teen smoking.
  
  
• 07/08/98 OPINION: stop Youth Smoking; It Prevents Addicted Adults Richard J. Rosen, Greensboro News & Record
  
  Tony Moschetti's letter mentioned that only 2 percent of cigarettes are consumed by teenagers (June 30). While this may be true, teenage smoking is much more important to the health of our citizens and to the tobacco industry than that percentage would imply. . . By preventing the 90 percent of smokers from becoming addicted to nicotine, one can eventually prevent 90 percent of the 400,000 deaths a year attributable to tobacco. I agree that alcohol and drugs are problems that should not be ignored, and they cause the deaths of innocent people, but the total damage from tobacco is greater.
  
  
• 07/09/98 TEXAS: RANDALL COUNTY: Sting Operation Nabs Store Clerks KAMR (Amarillo)/MSNBC
  
  Judge Phil Woodall's courtroom will be busy this week. Eight sales clerks have appointments to see him. The charge: selling cigarettes to minors. . . The Randall County Sheriff's Department has been running a tobacco sting since early May. Using teen customers, deputies caught clerks selling to minors. So far, they've swept 88 stores and 12 of those were in violation.
• 07/08/98 Store Clerks Cited In Tobacco Sting Amarillo Globe-News
  
  Citations were issued to 12 convenience store clerks who sold tobacco to minors during a weeklong Randall County sting that ended Monday night. "We bought tobacco at four businesses in Canyon, one outside in the rural part of the county and the rest of them in Amarillo," said Lt. Roger Short. According to Senate bill 55's Health and Safety code, clerks are required to card anyone under 27 years old. Short said each clerk faces a Class C misdemeanor charge for selling tobacco to a minor, which is punishable by a $500 fine.
  
  
• 07/08/98 FLORIDA: Youth-Influenced Anti-Smoking Effort Doesn't Mince Words The New York Times
  
  The new installments of the television, print, outdoor and interactive campaign, carrying over a theme centered on "truth," boldly assert that youngsters can resist the imagery that sells cigarettes if they understand the mendacious ploys being foisted upon them by the denizens of Tobacco Road, Madison Avenue and Hollywood. . . "We want to use our ads to pitch a different message," Perez said, "not that smoking is bad for you -- because we know that -- but that the industry is manipulating and targeting youth." . . Anti-smoking campaigns need to be "guerrilla advertising, a little under the radar," and "using the kids' language," said Alex Bogusky, partner, vice chairman and creative director at Crispin Porter.
• 06/20/98 Florida's Swat Sets An Example For A Nation At War With Tobacco St. Petersburg Times
  
  The SHOCK team flew in from New York this week to let Florida's SWAT (Students Working Against Tobacco) team know what they're doing to combat teenage smoking. . . But after hearing about what's going on in Florida, SHOCK was jealous. "We don't have anything like the kind of reach that this is going to have," said Tim LaPier, creator of the New York State's Youth Partnership for Health program.
  
  
• 07/10/98 MISSISSIPPI: Group Gets Peek At New Youth Law Biloxi (MS) Sun Herald
  
  METRIC DOCKINS THE SUN HERALD BAY ST. LOUIS - Coast law enforcement officers and area merchants were the first in the state to learn directly from the state Attorney General's Office how the new law governing tobacco sales to minors will affect their operations. About 30 people attended a session at the Bay St. Louis train depot Thursday on the Mississippi Juvenile Tobacco Access Prevention Act of 1997
  
  
• 07/10/98 WISCONSIN: When It Comes To Smoking, Kids Say It All Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
  
  The amazing thing about kids is that they can make a point with astounding clarity. When you smoke, you aren't cool. You are actually paying to kill yourself, wrote Travis Roeseler, a sixth grade student from Evans School in Fond du Lac. Travis was among 10 students who submitted a winning entry in the STATE MEDICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN'S anti-smoking essay contest. More than 700 creative and thoughtful essays flowed in from throughout Wisconsin.
  
  
• 07/12/98 CALIFORNIA: Assembly Won't Stop Prisons' Selling Tobacco To Teens Inland Valley, CA Daily Bulletin
  
  The California Department of Corrections is allowed to sell cigarettes to 16- and 17-year-old juveniles in state prison. Though selling cigarettes to minors is illegal, prisons are exempt. "It doesn't make any sense," said Assemblyman Fred Aguiar. "The fact of the matter is, we're spending millions and millions of dollars a year to get teens to stop smoking. We also prosecute business people who sell tobacco products to minors. It's absolutely wrong that the state should be able to sell tobacco products to minors."
  
  
• 07/12/98 ARIZONA: 15% Of Ariz. Teens, 14-17, Smoke, Study Says; National Rate Is Higher Arizona Daily Star
  
  The report by the state Department of Health Services shows that 15 percent of youngsters age 14 through 17 had at least one cigarette in the last month. That is less than half the national rate. Health Director James Allen credited the voter-approved 40-cents-a-pack tax on cigarettes for making the difference, both by raising the cost and by funding public education campaigns. But Brad Christensen, health department communications director, conceded there are no statistics to show whether Arizona's below-average rate has occurred since the 1994 change in law or has historically been true.
  
  
• 07/14/98 CALIFORNIA: VAN NUYS: Anti-Smoking Effort Underway at School LA Times
  
  A state-funded program designed to instruct kids in the art of teaching their peers that tobacco isn't cool kicked off Monday afternoon at Van Nuys High School. . . Under the TEENS AGAINST TOBACCO Use program, a school generally receives $35,000 to $45,000 to set up and maintain the project, depending on enrollment, Cannell said.
  
  
• 07/15/98 AUSTRALIA: Fine For Smokes Sale To Youth [Melbourne, VIC] Herald Sun
  
  A MILKBAR owner was yesterday ordered to pay $850 for selling cigarettes to a person under 18 ­ the first such prosecution in Victoria. Sunshine milkbar owner Mr Odyssa Diogenis, 48, became the first Victorian found guilty of illegally selling tobacco to a minor under a government-sponsored crackdown on underage smoking.
  
  
• 07/16/98 MISSISSIPPI: Vehicle To Help Fight Teens' Use Of Tobacco Biloxi (MS) Sun Herald
  
  City officials plan to use tobacco-settlement money to purchase a vehicle for sheriff's deputies that will be identified specifically as an anti-tobacco car. The purchase of the vehicle will come from $25,000 that will be allocated to D'Iberville as part of $5 million from the funds the state received in a settlement with major tobacco companies, said City Manager Alan Santa Cruz. "It will have a lot to do with making our stores and convenience store operators aware that they are being checked for selling to anybody underage," Santa Cruz said.
  
  
• 07/14/98 NEW YORK: Pol Aims at Sellers Of Cigs to Minors (New York) Daily News
  
  obacco merchants who sell to minors would lose their licenses under a three-strikes-and-you're-out system Rep. NITA LOWEY (D-Westchester) is drafting after a Daily News expose. Lowey's bill would create a new federal licensing system for all tobacco sales outlets ‹ including 25,000 in New York State ‹ imposing a $1,500 fine for a first sale to minors, $5,000 for the second and loss of license for a third.
  
  
• 07/15/98 FLORIDA: Community's Input Sought For Programs To Combat Teen Smoking Naples (FL) Daily News
  
  The COLLIER COUNTY TOBACCO-FREE PARTNERSHIP is asking community leaders and organizations to come up with prevention programs to combat teen smoking. Mini-grants of up to $15,000 will be available for the programs. About $50,000 is expected shortly from the state to fund these programs for the second half of the year, said Vivienne Niehaus, chairwoman of the coalition.
  
  
• 07/15/98 FLORIDA: Anti-smoking Program Takes River Cruise Florida Times-Union
  
  Free food, cool T-shirts, dancing, a hip 19-year-old motivational speaker - and no parents. Just the kind of ticket to draw kids to an event that could help save their lives, said Lori Bayler, Heather Young and Carmin Leach, high school students who are helping run Clay County's Tobacco-Free Partnership. . . The event is an Anti-Tobacco Riverboat Cruise, which will be held July 22 on the Lady St. Johns, one of the riverboats owned by the Jacksonville-based Annabelle Lee party boat company.
  
  
• 07/15/98 OHIO: Study Links Smoking To Hearing Loss PR Newswire
  
  A new study at the University of Wisconsin documents the link between hearing loss and cigarette smoking. Research now shows smokers face nearly twice the risk of developing hearing loss as do nonsmokers. In addition, people regularly exposed to passive cigarette smoke also have an increased risk of hearing loss. This is just one of the numerous reasons Tobacco-To-21 advocates are urging the passage of Ohio Senate Bill 221 -- which raises the age requirement to purchase tobacco products from 18 to 21 to combat skyrocketing youth smoking rates.
  
  
• 07/16/98 EDITORIAL: Good News, Bad News San Antonio Express News
  
  A new federal report on the state of America's children offers hope. . . Unfortunately, the number of young people smoking, drinking and taking drugs is on the rise again. Youths in all ethnic and racial groups are part of the trend. . . Congress could take a quick step forward by reviving the bogged down anti-tobacco legislation to reduce the number of children who start smoking.
  
  
• 07/15/98 EDITORIAL: Bust Kiddie Cig Sales (New York) Daily News
  
  Councilman John Fusco (R-S.I.) is pushing a bill, which has been sitting in the City Council since last year, that would significantly increase the penalties against vendors who sell to minors. It deserves passage. . . With one in three teens expected to die from smoking-related illnesses, according to health officials, something must be done to put the brakes on this growing problem. And that begins with stopping those who push cigarettes to kids.
  
  
• 07/15/98 OPINION: Refried Eggs Don't Fool Teens Sally Kalson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
  
  I say we stop positioning drugs as violent and dangerous, even though they are, and start casting them as immature and nerdy, or middle-aged and square. . . The best minds in advertising didn't make cigarettes sexy by saying they were good for you; they did it by subliminally linking them to the good life. Likewise, no ad campaign is going to make drugs unsexy by preaching that they're bad for you. They must be linked to something no teen wants to be. This is your brain (show egg). This is your brain on drugs (show Clinton and Gingrich grinning stupidly). Any questions?
  
  
• 07/17/98 VIRGINIA: Undercover Teenagers Recruited Reuters
  
  The state A-B-C Department is recruiting teenagers for undercover checks of retailers selling tobacco products. A-B-C officials are looking for 15- and 16-year- olds who are willing to check compliance with laws barring the sale of cigarettes or other tobacco products to anyone under the age of 18.
  
  
• 07/19/98 INDIANA: Apathy Snuffing Out Smoking Law Indianapolis Star/News
  
  It's a crime for Indiana minors to have tobacco, but critics say police often look the other way. . . The 1997 law has turned out to be a dud.
  
  
• 07/19/98 NEW JERSEY: Stores Lax About Carding Rule For Cigarette Sales AP
  
  New Jersey retailers routinely disregard rules intended to curb teen smoking, according to a newspaper investigation involving sales of cigarettes to reporters ages 19-24. Selling cigarette to anyone under 18 is illegal, and federal regulations adopted in February 1997 require vendors to card anyone under 27 who tries to buy cigarettes. But in 200 recent purchases, young reporters for the Courier-News of Bridgewater were carded in just one out of four buys, the newspaper reported Sunday.
  
  
• 07/19/98 FLORIDA: Caustic Ads Burn Tobacco Associates St. Petersburg Times
  
  The state's edgy new anti-tobacco advertising campaign has taken on the motion picture industry, convenience stores, ad agencies, even vending machine makers. Notice, they're not aimed at the tobacco companies themselves. . . ."Anybody who gets money from the tobacco industry, it's open season," said Carlea Bauman, spokeswoman for the Florida Tobacco Pilot Program and the "Truth" campaign.
  Some of the Whole Truth Campaign's ads are here Rolling Stone, Grey Advertising and others are listed on the Target Page
  
• 07/18/98 NORTH CAROLINA: More Tobacco-sales Checks Set Lexington (KY) Herald Leader
  
  Kentucky will more than double the number of checks it runs on stores for cigarette sales to minors -- from 2,000 annually to about 5,000 -- with a $253,000 federal grant. "I don't know anybody who wants children to smoke," Gov. Paul Patton said yesterday in announcing the grant at a Capitol news conference. Patton said the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control will receive the money over the next year to enforce federal regulations against retailers selling tobacco products to young people.
  
  
• 07/20/98 FLORIDA: A Legal Weapon Against Teen Smoking; Florida Teens Face Court If Caught MSNBC
  
  Police in Broward Country, Fla., are telling teen-age smokers to pull over. As part of a new, Florida anti-smoking effort, teen-agers found smoking must appear in court with a parent, sign up for a class on the dangers of smoking and choose community service or a fine or risk losing their drivers' licenses.
• 07/20/98 FLORIDA Gives Teen-Age Smokers a Day in Court The New York Times
  
  "When I was your age, there was nobody out there to tell me about the dangers of smoking," Mogk, 60, said at a recent court session, talking through an electronic device he has used since his larynx, or voice box, and vocal cords were surgically removed. "The reason I'm here today is for a reality check." The teen-agers applauded, even though many said later they would keep on smoking. In Florida's fight against teen-age smoking, Shutter's courtroom in Plantation, a suburb just west of Fort Lauderdale, is a new weapon that combines education, health warnings and parental nagging with the weight of the law.
  Here's the item at the Austin American-Statesman
  
  
• 07/20/98 OHIO: Lecture Offers Guests Food For Thought Akron Beacon Journal
  
  Professor of epidemiology Dr. Pamela Clark told her listeners that "it is easier for kids to get off cocaine that it is to get off nicotine," during her workshop titled "Limiting Tobacco's Access to Children." Clark said every day about 6,000 kids try smoking for the first time and about half of them become regular smokers. And they start not necessarily because of peer pressure but because they haven't been told by their parents that they shouldn't, Clark said. "Parents are the most powerful voices, but many kids say they don't know where their parents stand on tobacco," she said.
  
  
• 07/21/98 ARIZONA: Tobacco Access Limited Reuters
  
  Tobacco is a little bit harder to steal in GILBERT now. A new ordinance has taken effect that requires businesses that sell tobacco products to keep them behind counters or locked up. The move is meant to deter theft and to discourage minors from getting tobacco. Stores caught violating the ordinance face 500-dollar fines.
  
  
• 07/21/98 SOUTH DAKOTA: Tobacco, Teen Use Studied Daily Southtown
  
  Some Bloom Township High School District 206 students will become part of a study aimed at determining the link between underage tobacco use and the availability of tobacco. School district officials have given a DePaul University researcher permission to begin a three-year study looking at teen tobacco use. Richard Katz, who holds a doctorate in psychology, plans to sample 100 students in each grade. The survey contains 53 questions about the use of tobacco and illegal drugs.
  
  
• 07/21/98 EDITORIAL: KENTUCKY: Tobacco Connection; Targeting Retailers Who Sell To Minors Is A Good Tactic Lexington (KY) Herald Leader
  
  No single approach will be adequate to deal with the scourge of smoking, or to discourage youngsters from acquiring the addiction. Bewilderingly, the latest surveys suggest smoking is on the rise among adults and children in Kentucky. An estimated 55 percent of high school seniors say they smoke. This trend demands action on many fronts, including the family and mass media. . . . Until now, it has been easy for retailers, who profit nicely from cigarette sales, to turn a blind eye to underage customers. But that approach just got riskier, thanks to the new threat of enforcement and fines.
  
  
• 07/21/98 EDITORIAL: Bad Examples; Smoking In Movies, By Parents Influences Children Lexington (KY) Herald Leader
  
  Hollywood's reglamorization of the deadly habit has been called unconscionable by everyone from Hillary Clinton to Mitch McConnell. . . For all the harmful messages Hollywood sends kids about smoking, though, their parents are hurting them even more. . . It's also something to consider if you have never tried or have been unable to stop smoking. Maybe you could quit for your children. It might save their lives.
  
  
• 07/21/98 CONNECTICUT: SEYMOUR No Smoking Ordinance Enacted Connecticut Morning News, UPI
  
  A new ordinance banning smoking in public by anyone under the age of 18 in the town of Seymour has taken effect. The ordinance was enacted yesterday and could result in a warning or fine for anyone caught in violation. Offenders could also be directed to take anti-smoking education classes. The ordinance is the first of its kind in Connecticut.
• 07/19/98 Town Of SEYMOUR Cracks Down On Underage Smoking WVIT/MSNBC
  
  With the new anti-smoking law on the first offense, police will talk to the offender about the harms of smoking and recommend they take a course to stop smoking. On the person's second offense there is a $20 fine and a mandatory course to quit smoking and there's a report sent to the parents and school principal. On the person's third offense there's a $50 fine. Seymour First selectman John O'Toole says he's amazed in this day and age at how ready underage smokers are to light up in public.
  
  
• 07/22/98 NEW JERSEY: HADDON TWP. Bans Tobacco For Youths Philadelphia Inquirer
  
  The Board of Commissioners unanimously adopted an ordinance last night that makes it illegal for anyone younger than 18 to possess any form of tobacco , including smokeless tobacco.
  
  
• 07/22/98 NEW JERSEY: OAKLAND Calls For Lockouts On Cigarette Machines Bergen (NJ) Record
  
  After weeks of debating whether to ban cigarette vending machines, borough officials have chosen a softer approach to curbing underage smoking. The Borough Council plans to propose a law requiring that all tobacco machines in Oakland be equipped with a remote-control lockout device. To buy cigarettes from such a machine -- often found in restaurants, bowling alleys, and bars -- a person would need to ask an adult employee to turn it on.
  
  
• 07/22/98 NEW JERSEY: POMPTON LAKES: Borough Out To Ban Smoking By Teens Bergen (NJ) Record
  
  Following the lead of other communities that have targeted teen smoking, the Borough Council is considering a ban on smoking by anyone under age 18. Under a proposed ordinance that is scheduled to be presented at a public hearing Aug. 19, youngsters would be prohibited from smoking or chewing tobacco virtually anywhere in town outside their own homes.
  
  
• 07/22/98 FLORIDA: Teenagers Taking Charge In Antismoking Campaign Christian Science Monitor
  
  It's all part of the experimental antismoking Truth Campaign that features an in-your-face message approved by Florida's own teens. . . "Before this campaign I really didn't know about the tobacco industry manipulation. You'd hear a little about it, but I didn't realize how much the industry had been targeting youths," says Jenny Lee, an incoming freshman at the University of Miami who is helping direct the campaign. "For years and years [teens] have been told that smoking is cool and if you want to look hot and hang out with cool kids you need to smoke," Ms. Lee says. "Now we are fighting back."
  
  
• 07/22/98 ILLINOIS: New Academic Dishonesty Policy Covers Internet Cribbing Graph in Chicago Tribune
  
  A policy on academic dishonesty will go into effect this fall in Township High School District 211. . . The board also approved a new student appearance policy prohibiting clothing that depicts the use of tobacco, alcohol or illegal substances, as well as clothing that is gang-related or depicts violence.
  
  
• 07/23/98 OHIO: High School Students Debate Cigarette Bill Columbus (OH) Dispatch
  
  The arguments for raising the legal age to buy cigarettes to 21 were compelling. So were the arguments against. Students from Columbus high schools spent yesterday morning in a Statehouse hearing room debating the pros and cons of a proposal that Sen. Grace Drake, R-Solon, believes would reduce teen-age smoking.
  
  
• 07/22/98 TENNESSEE: Coalition of Retail Associations Launch Statewide Training Initiative to Prevent Illegal Tobacco Sales PR Newswire
  
  Prominent Tennessee retail associations representing thousands of retailers, wholesalers and grocers today announced the launch of a statewide training initiative designed to educate retail employees in preventing underage tobacco sales. The group, known as the Tennessee Coalition for Responsible Tobacco Retailing, said that six free training workshops would be held in cities across the state this week.
  
  
• 07/23/98 OHIO: No Shame: Still Can't Trust Big Tobacco Says Tobacco-To-21 PR Newswire
  
  Have they no shame? After Congressional hearings and court proceedings revealed the tobacco industry purposefully targeted youth in their 1970's and 80's advertising campaigns, (such as Joe Camel encouraging underage smoking), now, they're back at it again. . . . Tobacco-To-21 advocates urge the passage of Ohio Senate Bill 221 -- which promotes raising the age requirement to purchase tobacco products from 18 to 21. The group claims SB 221 would help deter the tobacco industry from targeting our nation's youth with extreme unconventional advertising tactics.
  
  
• 07/24/98 MAINE: Grants Announced In Tobacco-fighting Campaign AP
  
  Highlighting a state effort to reduce Maine's high rate of smoking among youth and young adults, health officials have announced the award of $1.5 million in local grants for education and prevention programs. "These local programs are Maine's newest ground forces in the fight against Big Tobacco," Maine Human Services Commissioner Kevin Concannon said in a statement prepared for a ceremony Thursday at the Augusta Civic Center.
  
  
• 07/23/98 MAINE: Freeport Bans Racks Of Self-serve Cigarettes Portland Press Herald
  
  Children will have a tougher time getting cigarettes following the Town Council's decision Wednesday to regulate how stores display tobacco products. The ordinance, which passed on a 5-2 vote, forbids stores from selling tobacco products from racks that are accessible to customers.
  
  
• 07/25/98 MISSISSIPPI: County Municipalities Get Money Reuters
  
  BOLIVAR COUNTY municipalities are getting thousands of dollars from the Mississippi Attorney General's Office to crack down on kids buying tobacco. CLEVELAND will get 58-thousand dollars, while SHELBY and ROSEDALE will both receive around ten-thousand. Every municipality is getting a minimum of five-thousand dollars... and the town's population determines the rest. The money is part of a settlement by Mississippi with the tobacco industry.
  
  
• 07/24/98 ARKANSAS: UPI Arkansas News Briefs UPI
  
  A statewide . . . federally-funded survey conducted by the state Department of Education also found that more students were bringing weapons to school and smoking cigarettes
  
  
• 07/25/98 WASHINGTON: Everett Mulls Tougher Alcohol, Tobacco Codes The [Everett, WA] Herald
  
  Police and courts will be able to toughen up on youngsters caught carrying tobacco products or alcoholic beverages if the city council next week approves a package of proposed changes to city ordinances, said Michael Weight, assistant city attorney. There will be a public hearing on the proposed changes at a council meeting at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday in city council chambers, 3002 Wetmore Ave.
  
  
• 07/27/98 FLORIDA: Teenagers Reap Windfall From Tobacco Settlement Florida Times-Union
  
  Almost a year after tobacco companies agreed to give $200 million for a two-year pilot program aimed at teens, projects to encourage kids not to smoke are off and running in Duval County. The goal is to de-glamorize and de-normalize tobacco use "so people see it's not something everybody does," said Carlea Bauman, spokeswoman for the FLORIDA TOBACCO PILOT PROGRAM. "Most people don't smoke," Bauman said.
  
  
• 07/27/98 MISSISSIPPI: Effort May Curb Sales To Minors Biloxi (MS) Sun Herald
  
  Police have arrested 11 people on charges of selling tobacco to minors. . . The arrests came from a 90-day investigation into tobacco compliance and enforcement in the Gulfport area. . . All suspects were released on $100 bonds.
  
  
• 07/27/98 CALIFORNIA: LUCKY STORES Trains Managers In Southern California, Nevada To Prevent Underage Tobacco Sales; Managers Complete `WE CARD' Training In Intensive Three-Day Series PR Newswire
  
  
• 07/28/98 NEW JERSEY: POMPTON LAKES: Week in review, Passaic/Morris Bergen (NJ) Record
  
  The Pompton Lakes Council is considering a ban on smoking by anyone under age 18. According to an ordinance set for a public hearing Aug. 19, youngsters would be banned from smoking or chewing tobacco virtually anywhere outside their homes.
  
  
• 07/29/98 Keeping Kids From Lighting Up Christian Science Monitor
  
  "Kids tell us very clearly that the place they get scripting from is parents," says Pamela Clark, a longtime researcher on teen smoking. That script "needs to be strong and unambiguous. 'You will not use tobacco. Period.' " When children don't have a strong script to draw from they will pull from elsewhere. Friends. Other relatives. Media messages, including those at tobacco-sponsored sporting events and parties (see story below). And Hollywood (remember Leonardo DiCaprio's character in "Titanic"?). . . Researchers say probably the worst thing parents can do is remain silent, but plenty do, especially if they smoke. "Kids are looking for guidelines," reiterates Clark
  
  
• 07/29/98 SOUTH CAROLINA: Teens Pledge To Stay Away From Tobacco The State (Columbia, SC)
  
  More than 1,500 young people from throughout South Carolina signed pledges on Tuesday "to remain smoke free" in their teen years. Wallet-sized pledge cards were distributed to the crowds of young people, ages 4 to 24, who are in Columbia for a three-day conference sponsored by AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL churches in South Carolina.
  
  
• 07/29/98 FLORIDA: Naples Police: Don't Sell Cigarettes To Minors Naples (FL) Daily News
  
  If this teen-ager can buy a pack of cigarettes, Naples police won't be far behind her. Last week's latest effort to enforce Florida's law on under-aged smoking - and selling tobacco to young people under 18 - snagged two store clerks who sold cigarettes to a 16-year-old girl working with police.
  
  
• 07/29/98 LETTERS: Anti-Smoking Commercial Aimed at Youth 2 highly charged letters on Shawn Hubler's July 27 column, "Fighting Joe Camel With a Foul Mouth" (below)
  
  It seems apparent that Hubler finds the term "sucks" more offensive than children--some as young as 11--smoking. Here again is another example of someone with a skewed sense of morality harping on a harmless word and ignoring the bigger issue. . . Another example of making it harder for parents who care about their kids is the television commercial in which the cigarette in a man's mouth goes limp
• 07/27/98 OPINION: Fighting Joe Camel With a Foul Mouth Shawn Hubler, LA Times
  
  Hey, kids! Here's your chance to win some cool new gear and tickets to a Dodger game! Just tell us in 30 words or less why smoking SUCKS!! Well, um, good message, but--did they have to say it quite that way? . . "We've got to speak their language," Caffee says . . . Still, propaganda wars are heck for the poor, wistful parents who wish there was a way to win hearts and minds--and lungs--with that public service kicker of their youth: Keep America Clean.
  
  
• 07/30/98 MISSISSIPPI: Ad Blitz Aims At Teen Smoking AP/Biloxi (MS) Sun Herald
  
  Attorney General Mike Moore hopes that a two-year, $12 million ad blitz can reduce the number of teens wanting to light up. A consortium of grass-roots groups, local government agencies and private sector partnerships will oversee the campaign. Money for the undertaking comes from a $62 million pilot project the tobacco industry agreed to fund. "Local people can solve local problems much better," Moore told about 40 members of the Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi. "We don't want to be the government telling people what to do."
  
  
• 07/30/98 ILLINOIS: DOWNERS GROVE Raises Teens' Smoking Fines Chicago Tribune
  
  The fines for illegal underage tobacco use in the village are going up, according to an ordinance approved this week by the Village Council. Fines for possession or use of tobacco or tobacco products by youths under age 18 are rising $25 to $75, with a $25 late fee remaining in effect.
  
  
• 07/29/98 ARIZONA: Law To Put Tobacco Out Of Reach The Arizona Republic
  
  When Mayor Joan Shafer saw two boys swipe cigarette packs from a store's counter, she was upset about how easily children can get tobacco. . . If approved Aug. 13, the ordinance would make Surprise the second Valley city to restrict the display and storage of tobacco products. Gilbert's law went into effect last week.
  
  
• 07/30/98 CALIFORNIA: Minors Often Have Access To Single Cigarettes Reuters
  
  Minors who tried to buy single cigarettes from stores in San Bernardino County, California, succeeded 7.9% of the time, according to a recent report in Preventive Medicine. And the minors would probably have had even more success if California had not been one of the few states where selling singles -- or "loosies" -- is illegal, believe the team of researchers, led by Dr. Hope Landrine, of Public Health Foundation, a private, nonprofit company based in City of Industry, California.
  
  
• 07/30/98 CANADA: Teen Smokers Depressed, Low In Self-esteem CP/Toronto Star
  
  The survey results, recently released by the provincially funded Ontario Tobacco Research Unit, uncovered strong links between psychological factors and cigarette use that could help design future anti-smoking campaigns. . . "They tell us all kinds of things that nobody ever bothers to ask them, which to me says something really important," she says. "They've got a lot of issues and nobody's really paying any attention to them." Pederson believes the tobacco industry has done similar research and is using it in marketing that exploits factors like low self-esteem.
  
  
• 07/31/98 FLORIDA: Money Coming To Curb Smoking Among Children Tampa Tribune
  
  Tobacco money awarded in a settlement with the state is expected to keep antitobacco campaigns strong for the next 25 years. Using money from last year's settlement of Florida's lawsuit against the tobacco industry, legislators are sending about $134,093 to counteract underage smoking in Pasco County. Under state guidelines, a loose association of antismoking health professionals and residents will decide how Pasco County should best use the money.
  
  
• 07/31/98 MISSISSIPPI: Program Tries To Keep Youth From Smoking Biloxi (MS) Sun Herald
  
  "I hate that I smoke. I smell, I stink," said duCote, who lives in Gulfport. "I go to a club and my breath stinks and my teeth are green. I hate it. I hate it." A new state program will soon try to break the myths that led duCote and other young people to smoke. The Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi is also giving money to police departments that agree to strongly enforce laws prohibiting the sale of tobacco to minors.
• 07/31/98 18-Year-old Says Quitting Is Hard When All Your Friends Smoke Biloxi (MS) Sun Herald
  
  Still, J.J.'s father, Norbert, is opposed to efforts like Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi, a $62 million program to curb teen smoking over the next two years. "The government doesn't have any business in family life," Norbert said. "If I can't get him to stop, the government sure can't." But Norbert hasn't been too successful.
  
  
• 07/31/98 Tobacco Chief Speaks Out Reuters
  
  The head of the nation's third largest tobacco company says his company's top priority is to stop youth smoking. Speaking to business leaders in Louisville, Brown and Williamson C-E-O NICK BROOKES said B-and-W does NOT want teens to smoke. That's why the company named a corporate officer to oversee efforts to keep youngsters from smoking.
  
  
• 07/31/98 FLORIDA: Anti-smoking Train Departs On 1,000 Mile Tour Tampa Tribune
  
  A train meant to bring an anti-smoking message to children throughout the state departed Friday on a 1,000-mile tour that will take it to 13 cities. . . The teens have $200 million to spend to persuade other kids in Florida to stay away from cigarettes.
• 07/30/98 FLORIDA: 'X-FILES' Actor To Help Battle Youth Smoking AP [LINK DEAD]
  
  But actor WILLIAM B. DAVIS, who plays the chain-smoking character also known as "Cancer Man," is an anti-smoker who quit the habit after his brother died from a smoking-related illness. He is expected to join hundreds of teens in an anti-tobacco "Truth Train" campaign scheduled to set out Friday from Pensacola and end Aug. 10 in Miami. . . "Four times more people smoke in movies than in real life," PEREZ said. "We want to reach some of those people and get them to think about what their roles are doing to the perception of tobacco by teens."
  
  
• 08/03/98 COLORADO: Cable Thieves, Smokers At Schools Face New Laws Rochy Mountain News
  
  Sen. Ken Chlouber, R-Leadville, sponsored the bill to impose an outright ban on all tobacco products in schools and on school grounds. Most schools are tobacco-free but have been allowed to exempt certain areas if school boards find good reason to do so. The new law gives schools until July 1, 1999, to eliminate tobacco.
  
  
• 08/02/98 FLORIDA: Anti-smoking Warriors Take Their Battle To Teen Hangouts Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
  
  Joyce Cohen, 16, a visitor from Turkey, speaks little English. But she got the message on Saturday when eight American teen-agers rode into CocoWalk on a 30-foot red firetruck emblazoned with the letters GROSS (Get Rid Of Student Smoking). . . CocoWalk was the first stop in a series of teen-age hangouts across Florida, from Miami to Melbourne, where GROSS is getting out its anti-smoking message. "We are here to have fun and tell students how tobacco companies are manipulating them," said GROSS founder and executive director Wendy Shafranski, 23. "We are here to tell the Marlboros and Camels of the world that we aren't going to take it anymore."
  
  
• 07/30/98 FLORIDA: 'X-files' Actor To Help Battle Youth Smoking AP/Orlando Sentinel
  
  But actor William B. Davis, who plays the chain-smoking character also known as "Cancer Man," is an anti-smoker who quit the habit after his brother died from a smoking-related illness. He is expected to join hundreds of teens in an anti-tobacco "Truth Train" campaign scheduled to set out Friday from Pensacola and end Aug. 10 in Miami.
  
  
• 08/03/98 EDITORIAL: Curbing Teen Smoking The News-Enterprise, Elizabethtown (KY)/Lexington (KY) Herald Leader
  
  The answer is simple. Enforcement. We've done it with underage drinking. Why can't we do it with underage smoking? . . Forget the bickering, and take a stand. Like the stand we've taken against underage drinkers. ... Admittedly, it goes on. But underage drinking arguably is not as widespread -- or as visible -- as teen smoking. We need to be more vigilant against kids who smoke. ...
  
  
• 08/04/98 OHIO: Compliance Checks, Enforcement Key to Reducing Youth Tobacco Use ACS PR Newswire
  
  Many public health groups, such as Tobacco-Free Ohio, encourage local communities to pass comprehensive legislation to reduce the accessibility of tobacco products to minors. These efforts include continued use of compliance checks, licensing of tobacco vendors and designating an enforcement agency to crackdown on vendors who sell illegally to minors.
  
  
• 08/04/98 UTAH, Fda Join Forces In Efforts To Snuff Out Smoking By Minors Deseret News
  
  Mitchell Zeller, associate commissioner of the FDA, was in Salt Lake City to kick off the ad campaign, which will run in Utah for the next four weeks. In the spirit of fair warning, Zeller said the ads precede the implementation of unannounced compliance checks on tobacco retailers around the state.
• 08/04/98 Ad Campaign Is Part of Crackdown On Retail Tobacco Sales to Minors Salt Lake Tribune
  
  FDA officials on Monday launched an advertising campaign letting retailers know that local health department workers and teens will be doing "compliance checks" over the next several weeks to make sure Utah's 1,500 stores are not selling cigarettes or smokeless tobacco to minors.
  
  
• 08/04/98 Stores Crack Down On Cigarette Sales As State Officials Prepare Survey AP/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
  
• 08/04/98 TEXAS: Police Checks For Teen Tobacco Sales Show Drop In Violations Fort Worth Star-Telegram
  
  Six feet tall and in need of a shave, a 14-year-old boy walked into a convenience store on Vickery Drive and bought a pack of Marlboros. Outside the store, the boy handed the pack to police officers, who went into AJ Food Store, 1631-A E. Vickery Drive, and gave the cashier a citation for illegally selling a tobacco product to a minor.
  
  
• 08/04/98 RHODE ISLAND: State Launches Campaign To Stop Tobacco Sales To Teens AP
  
  The $81,000 campaign, paid for with federal money, will feature print, radio and billboard advertisements over the next four weeks, and posters will be distributed to stores around the state. The campaign, the first of its kind, is a joint project of the FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION and the state Health Department. The Health Department will check retailers over the next four weeks to see whether they are selling to minors
  
  
• 08/05/98 CONNECTICUT: SEYMOUR: 4 Laws Facing Repeal Connecticut Post
  
  In response to a petition signed by 697 residents demanding a townwide vote on the laws, the Board of Selectmen voted Tuesday to schedule a referendum Aug. 19. The polls will be open from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. at Seymour Middle School. In addition to an ordinance that imposes counseling and fines for the use or possession of tobacco by anyone younger than 18, the petition drive targeted the three other ordinances approved by the selectmen in late June.
  
  
• 08/05/98 NEBRASKA: Undercover Tobacco Operation KHAS, Hastings, NE/MSNBC
  
  It's not your typical undercover operation because these aren't your normal undercover agents. The operatives in this sting are six 4-H participants, ages 13 to 17.
  
  
• 08/05/98 UTAH Kids Who Light Up May Land In Tobacco Court Deseret News
  
  The brainchild of 3rd District Juvenile Court Judge Joseph Anderson, the court was born out of desperation and a sense of frustration at a failing system. . . "There were simply too many," Anderson said. "They would have clogged up the court's docket." . . But the problem remained. And the more Anderson learned about what happens to kids who smoke, the more he tried to come up with a workable compromise. . . It took more than two years of careful thought and collaboration between the juvenile justice system, the state Board of Health and the Department of Education, but it looks as though Anderson may have found his compromise.
  
  
• 08/06/98 UTAH: MURRAY, JORDAN and NORTH SUMMIT Schools Will Participate in Tobacco Court Program AP/Salt Lake Tribune
  
  Three Utah school districts have volunteered to participate in the nation's first Tobacco Court, a pilot program which will attempt to slow the growth of teen smoking.
  
  
• 08/08/98 CALIFORNIA: MARTINEZ: Access to Cigarettes Could Be Restricted San Francisco Chronicle
  
  Teenagers would have a harder time buying cigarettes in Martinez if the City Council approves an ordinance developed by Mayor Mike Menesini.
  
  
• 08/07/98 Tour's Train Of Thought Is To Stop Teen Smoking Orlando Sentinel
  
  Central Florida teens can meet a TV star, of sorts, today. Jared Perez, 17, isn't an actor, but his face is familiar. He is featured in a series of state-sponsored anti-tobacco ads paid for with money won in litigation against the tobacco industry.
• 08/05/98 Anti-tobacco Campaign Chugs Into Tampa Station St. Petersburg Times
  
  Fanning themselves with anti-tobacco pamphlets, carrying welcome signs and occasionally killing time by weighing themselves on the train station luggage scale, about 100 teens hung out at Tampa Union Station on Tuesday waiting on a train. They clearly weren't weary, overwrought travelers, though. After all, no one was smoking. That's because they were waiting for the Truth Train . . . Richard Kinsey and his family were checking out the station before a train ride home to Pennsylvania. They were surprised by the crowd at the station. Kinsey, a smoker, refrained from lighting up in front of the teens.
• 08/04/98 TRANSCRIPT: Kids Fire Salvo In Tobacco War CBS Eye on America
  
  Tobacco manufacturers swear they don't want teenagers to smoke, reports CBS News Correspondent Paula Zahn, but a group of Florida teens aren't buying
  
  
• 08/09/98 EDITORIAL: Teen Smoking and Thinness Montreal Gazette
  
  The good news is that Quebec and Ottawa are making room on their agendas for concern about the health and social development of young people. Getting them to quit smoking, or not to start in the first place, is part of a range of initiatives intended to improve their over-all health, from the womb onward.
  
  
• 08/10/98 UTAH: Bold Approach To Teen Smoking Deseret News
  
  Utah has joined a growing cadre of states in partnership with the federal government to stamp out teen smoking. In addition, a Utah judge is spearheading a program with the schools to form the nation's first Tobacco Court, a pilot program geared specifically to address the increasing number of teenagers who already smoke.
  
  
• 08/10/98 KANSAS: Fines Help Snuff Out School Smoking Violations Wichita Eagle
  
  In 1994, Wichita passed an ordinance that made it illegal for minors to possess tobacco -- and backed it up with a $55 fine. The law was rarely enforced. Then, last year, a Wichita police officer was placed at each high school. The change has been profound. "Has it reduced smoking on campus?" Northwest High Principal Charles McLean asked rhetorically. "Amen."
  
  
• 08/09/98 MICHIGAN: LANSING Residents Don't Want Drugstore To Sell Alcohol, Tobacco AP
  
  Members of the Eastside Neighborhood Organization want the Camp Hill, Pa.-based chain to agree not to sell beer, wine or cigarettes at the drugstore. A company spokeswoman said RITE AID has strict policies against selling alcohol and tobacco products to minors. But that didn't satisfy Richard Kibbey, president of the neighborhood group.
  
  
• 08/11/98 FLORIDA: Teen-agers Blast Romantic Image Of Smoking Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
  
  Lighting up and striking a Bogart-like pose is a Hollywood tradition that has seduced millions of teen-agers to take up smoking. . . "We want our generation to be the first to reject the ideas about tobacco," said Susan Medina, vice chairwoman of SWAT.
• 08/10/98 Teens Wind Up 10-Day, 13-City Trip On Anti-tobacco Tampa Tribune
• 08/10/98 `Truth Train' Picks Up Steam Miami Herald
  
  To bring home the point, this in-your-face campaign will be at Miami Beach's Jackie Gleason Theater today with live music, Gov. LAWTON CHILES and WILLIAM B. DAVIS, the X-Files Cigarette Smoking Man (who doesn't really smoke cigarettes). Miami-Dade is the tour's 13th stop on a 10-day train trip across Florida.
• 08/09/98 Anti-smoking Teens Hop Aboard The 'Truth' Train Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
  
  Florida's Truth Train roared into Palm Beach County on Saturday, bringing with it a life-saving, anti-smoking message from kids. The 10-day, 13-city railroad tour of teen-agers who want to spread the word about the dangerous effects of cigarette smoking began in Pensacola on July 31 and will end in Miami on Monday.
• 08/09/98 Truth Train Rails At Tobacco's Dangers Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
  
  
• 08/11/98 TRUTH TRAIN Website
  
  
• 08/12/98 ILLINOIS: Melrose Park Lays Down The Law Westchester Herald
  
  The Melrose Park Village Board has passed an ordinance prohibiting stores and residents from selling or delivering tobacco to teenagers under 18 years old. Stores that sell tobacco products must have a license. The license fee has not yet been established, said Village Attorney Joe Giglio. Violation of the law will result in suspension or revocation of the license or a fine of $500 or less. Individuals found in violation will be entitled to a public hearing.
  
  
• 08/14/98 CDC Survey: One In Five Teenagers Carries A Weapon AP
  
  White high school students are more likely than blacks and Hispanics to hurt themselves with tobacco or drugs, while blacks and Hispanics are more likely to be a threat to others by carrying weapons or fighting, a government study found. The study released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also found that . . . Whites were . . . about twice as likely as Hispanics to smoke frequently or chew tobacco, with 20 percent saying they smoked frequently. Among blacks, 7 percent smoked frequently and 2 percent chewed tobacco.
  
  
• 08/14/98 UTAH: Teens in Utah Not Avoiding Risky Behavior Salt Lake Tribune
  
  The results show Utah ninth- through 12th-graders are much less likely than other U.S. teen-agers to drink alcohol, drive after drinking or smoke cigarettes or marijuana. They are more likely than other U.S. high school students to eat enough fruits and vegetables, exercise and wear seat belts, said the report by the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). . . The proportion of students who tried cigarettes was 70 percent nationally and 42 percent in Utah. Current smokers included 36 percent of students nationwide and 16 percent in Utah. Frequent smokers -- those who used cigarettes at least 20 days out of the previous month -- included 17 percent of students nationwide and 7 percent in Utah. Users of chewing tobacco included 9 percent of high schoolers nationally and 7 percent in Utah.
  
  
• 08/14/98 NEW JERSEY: POMPTON LAKES: Zero-tolerance Tobacco Ordinance Passed Bergen (NJ) Record
  
  Lighting up a cigarette or a cigar, puffing on a pipe, stuffing a cheek with tobacco, and stuffing one's nose with snuff are now illegal in the borough for everyone under 18, if done in public places. Joining a growing trend across America of zero tolerance for youngsters experimenting with tobacco, the Borough Council voted unanimously Wednesday to adopt a prohibition similar to that enacted in a number of New Jersey municipalities and several other states.
  
  
• 08/14/98 FLORIDA: NAPLES: Tobacco Sting Nets 3 Naples (FL) Daily News
  
  Three people, including a 17-year-old who isn't old enough to legally buy cigarettes, were cited Wednesday for selling tobacco to an underage customer. A 16-year-old boy working with police was able to buy cigarettes - and cigars - from three Naples businesses. . . Using the decoy, the boy would go into each store - police checked 20 businesses in about five hours - and try to purchase the cigarettes or cigars. Most businesses checked, but three didn't, police say.
  
  
• 08/14/98 WISCONSIN: WEST BEND: 10 Stores Sell Cigarettes To Minors Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
  
  During a recent sweep of 21 merchants in the city that sell tobacco products, 10 sold products to minors. The Tobacco Free Washington County Coalition conducted its third sweep in less than a year Tuesday evening. Two Hartford teenagers went into 21 of the 41 licensed establishments in the city and attempted to buy cigarettes. Patricia Hrobsky, chairwoman of the coalition, said that because the group's buyers are minors, they weren't sent into liquor stores or taverns.
  
  
• 08/13/98 MARYLAND: Keeping Score On Youth Crime; Links to Drug, Alcohol Use Probed Graph in Washington Post
  
  Of almost 900 juvenile offenders interviewed by county social workers since October, 70 percent were found to have drug or alcohol abuse problems. . . Most of the juvenile offenders between 15 and 18 years old, she said, told social workers that they had been drinking or using drugs for years. "That tells you if we could develop some prevention programs at a much earlier age, we could reduce the actual problem later on," Tomic said. "It tells us if we're going to do something, we need to start at age 11 -- 12 at the latest." Of the 873 students interviewed, 67 percent said they drank alcohol. Some 52 percent used marijuana and 51 percent used tobacco
  
  
• 08/15/98 FLORIDA: Teens Work To Snuff Out Tobacco St. Petersburg Times
  
  Nearly 50 Hernando County students, most of whom hold leadership positions in clubs and organizations at their schools, were brought together Friday in a recruiting effort for the SWAT team -- Students Working Against Tobacco. SWAT is a product of Florida's $11.3-billion settlement with the tobacco industry. The youth-led organization will have branches in all 67 Florida counties dedicated to raising awareness among kids about the dangers of tobacco. The Truth Train, a cross-state railroad trip to stir up publicity for the campaign, finished its journey this week.
  
  
• 08/14/98 YOUTH RISK BEHAVIOR SURVEILLANCE -- UNITED STATES, 1997 CDC
  
  Therefore, six categories of behaviors contribute to the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in the United States --- behaviors that contribute to unintentional and intentional injuries; tobacco use; alcohol and other drug use; sexual behaviors that contribute to unintended pregnancy and STDs (including human immunodeficiency virus [HIV] infection); unhealthy dietary behaviors; and physical inactivity. These behaviors, which frequently are interrelated, often are established during youth and extend into adulthood.
  
  
• 08/17/98 VERMONT: WINOOSKI Waits For Ruling On BURLINGTON Tobacco Ordinance AP
  
  City officials are waiting to see how neighboring Burlington's ordinance cracking down on tobacco ads holds up in court before deciding whether to adopt one like it. Winooski has tabled its ordinance to wait for a ruling in the Burlington case in which store owners claim that limiting their advertising is an infringement of their freedom of speech.
  
  
• 08/17/98 OHIO: Program Can Put END To Habit Akron Beacon Journal
  
  About 15 giggling people passed a jar of thick, greenish-brown slime around the auditorium at Cuyahoga Falls General Hospital. . . "Pretty yucky, isn't it?" asked Heather Borski, community health specialist with the Utah Department of Health. "People with emphysema cough up about two cups of that stuff a day." Borski's presentation was part of a training session last week for the Ending Nicotine Dependence Program, an activity-driven program to attack the teen-age smoking problem.
  
  
• 08/17/98 WISCONSIN: Stores Face Tickets For Cigarette Sales Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
  
  Four convenience stores accused of illegally selling tobacco products to minors are each expected to receive $116.95 tickets this week, police said. In the third compliance check held by the Tobacco Free Washington County Coalition since December, a pair of Hartford teenagers went into 21 of 41 businesses licensed to sell tobacco products in the city and attempted to purchase cigarettes last week. Ten of the 21 stores sold to minors.
  
  
• 08/14/98 EDITORIAL: Sex And Cigarettes Savannah Morning News
  
  Overall, some 12 million Americans, two-thirds of them under 25, acquire new STDs each year. That's 12 times as many as start smoking. Five of the 10 most frequently reported infectious diseases in America are STDs. What's frustrating is that many of these STDs, including chlamydia, are preventable through the use of condoms or, better yet, through abstinence. Unfortunately, ignorance prevails. If STDs are more widespread among teens than cigarettes, why has the Clinton administration and its allies not led the charge to educate the public and moralize like they have on smoking?
  
  
• 08/15/98 LETTER: Federal Cigar Bill Would Not Reduce Underage Smoking Norman F. Sharp, Baltimore Sun
  
  Your article about proposed federal legislation on cigars ignored one important fact: A number of laws, regulations and programs to prevent underage cigar smoking are already in place. . . Of course, even one underage smoker is one too many. That's why the U.S. cigar industry will continue working on this challenge. We believe industry-sponsored programs, along with strong, consistent law enforcement, will make a big difference. Passing yet another law in Washington won't.
  
  
• 08/18/98 USF's LEAVITT goes on defense against tobacco St. Petersburg Times
  
  Like all college football coaches at this time of year, Jim Leavitt is busy. Really busy. . . All of which made Leavitt's appearance Friday afternoon at Lakewood Ranch in Spring Lake all the more meaningful. The Hernando County S.W.A.T. team -- Students Working Against Tobacco -- held its first annual Young Leaders Conference there on Friday and Leavitt sacrificed about 21/2 hours of his time to drive up from Tampa in mid-afternoon and address the group.
  
  
• 08/19/98 MICHIGAN: Decoys Join Police Crackdown Detroit News
  
  Using a 16-year-old and 17-year-old as decoys, troopers cited 36 store clerks for 90-day, $500-misdemeanors for selling alcohol and cigarettes to minors in WESTLAND, GARDEN CITY, TAYLOR, MELVINDALE, LINCOLN PARK, ALLEN PARK and CANTON TOWNSHIP on Friday and Saturday. "The only reason they stopped is they got writer's cramp," said Lt. Dennis Bolling, the commander of the Metro South police post in Taylor. "It's too easy for kids to buy alcohol or cigarettes."
  
  
• 08/19/98 VIRGINIA: State To Enforce Tobacco Rules / ABC Agents Get Federal Role In Age Restrictions On Sales Richmond Times-Dispatch
  
  Gov. Jim Gilmore said yesterday that state alcoholic beverage control agents have received permission to enforce new federal regulations against sale of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco to anyone under 18 years old. . . The federal penalties hold the store owner responsible instead of the clerk, who is charged under state law. Other than using federal money to help pay the bills, the new responsibility does little to change Virginia's program, said W. Curtis Coleburn III, ABC deputy for legislative, legal and policy matters. "Additional paperwork, basically."
  
  
• 08/20/98 OHIO: Group Fired Up About Plans To Snuff Out Youth Smoking Columbus (OH) Dispatch
  
  Sparked by a survey that shows youth are smoking their first cigarettes by age 9, a group is releasing plans to curb that trend, including increasing the tax on cigarettes and banning vending machine sales. The recommendations are to be released today and come from a round-table discussion in March initiated by the Franklin County Prevention Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preventing substance abuse.
  
  
• 08/21/98 WISCONSIN: BUCHER To Try To Revitalize Anti-smoking Effort Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
  
  District Attorney Paul Bucher announced Thursday an effort to cut tobacco use in the county by focusing on educating grade school children about the dangers of tobacco. "We're going to be getting into the schools -- and I'm talking grade schools, not high schools. By the time they get to high school, it's too late," said Bucher, who recently was named chairman of the Waukesha County Tobacco Free Coalition.
  
  
• 08/20/98 WISCONSIN: Stores To Be Cited For Cigarette Sales Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
  
  West Bend -- Eight stores will receive citations for selling tobacco to minors after a second cigarette sting in a week. The Tobacco Free Washington County Coalition sent minors into 22 stores around West Bend on Tuesday evening. At eight locations, the teenagers returned with tobacco products.
  
  
• 08/20/98 CALIFORNIA: COSTA MESA: Bid to Ban Self-Serve Cigarettes Falls Short LA Times
  
  group of Estancia High School students learned a tough civics lesson this week after a proposal to outlaw self-service cigarette dispensers failed. Four teenagers had asked the City Council to forbid stores and markets to use displays that allow customers to reach for their own tobacco. The teens contended that shoplifting from the counter is easy and defeats clerks who ask for identification. But a council majority rejected the idea, saying the law is redundant and unfairly punishes businesses. Mayor Peter BUFFA and Councilmen Joe ERICKSON and Gary MONAHAN voted against, while Councilwomen Libby COWAN and Heather K. SOMERS were in favor.
• 08/19/98 Teens' Cigarette Ordinance Defeated LA Times
  
  Statistics on teen smoking, impassioned arguments and the support of two city committees were not enough to convince a majority of the City Council to approve an ordinance banning self-service tobacco displays in city stores. A group of four teenagers has worked since April on the campaign, sponsored by Camp Fire Boys and the Girls Speak Out! program. . . The ordinance was defeated by a 3-2 vote Monday.
  
  
• 08/20/98 RHODE ISLAND: State Risks Losing $1.8 Million Over Tardy Application AP
  
  The state may lose $1.8 million in federal funds for treatment and prevention of drug and alcohol abuse because the Health Department missed a grant application deadline. . . Democratic gubernatorial candidate Myrth York released information about the grant problems to the media Wednesday, saying loss of the money would be "disastrous." York said loss of the money would be Almond's fault and would hurt efforts to curtail childhood smoking. In fact, only a small portion of the grant money goes toward tobacco prevention and none goes toward treatment for tobacco abuse, said Health Director Dr. Patricia Nolan. Donna Shalala, secretary of the federal Health and Human Services Department, will make a final decision on the grant, possibly this week.
  
  
• 08/21/98 Y. Health Expert Says Ads Encourage Kids To Smoke; Companies Target Youths, Give Them False Impressions Deseret News
  
  Cigarette advertising gives children a false impression of how many people actually smoke, said a health sciences expert on Thursday. "It certainly normalizes a very lethal addiction and makes it appear everyone is doing it," said Gordon B. Lindsay, associate professor of health science at Brigham Young University. Lindsay spoke as part of BYU's Education Week, outlining various ways alcohol and tobacco companies recruit new smokers and maintain current users of their products.
  
  
• 08/21/98 CONNECTICUT: Voters Overturn Seymour Town Ordinance Against Teen Smoking AP
• 08/20/98 Town Stamps Out Smoking Ban Hartford (CT) Courant (NEW LINK)
  
  A ban on teenage smoking that pushed the limits of local anti-tobacco legislation in the state this year and divided neighbors in the small New Haven County community was felled in a forced referendum Wednesday. Residents voted 1,366-545 to overturn the ban. "We got our town back," said Mary Adamowski, in a voice strained by weeks of protest against the ban.
  
  
• 08/22/98 MINNESOTA: Teens Will Smoke Less When Cigarettes Harder To Buy Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
  
  When cigarettes get harder to buy, Minnesota teenagers will smoke less -- even though at their tender age they're as likely to bum or steal cigarettes as buy them,according to a study in this month's American Journal of Public Health. National experts are calling the study the biggest and most rigorous research to test the power of vigilant communities in discouraging teen smoking. . . The study, which was conducted between 1993 and 1996, turned up significant differences in teen smoking rates between a group of seven communities that made it harder for teens to buy cigarettes and a group of seven that didn't.
  
  
• 08/26/98 VIDEO CLIP: FLORIDA Teens Face 'Smoking' Court MSNBC
  
  The state of Florida is getting tough on teen-age smokers. Young people caught puffing on cigarettes are taken to "court," where they face fines. NBC's Kerry Sanders reports for the "Today" show.
  
  
• 08/25/98 PM Considering TV Public Service Announcements Targeting Teen Smoking Scarc News/Adweek
  
  PHILIP MORRIS is considering running televised public service spots to discourage underage smoking. ELLEN MERLO, senior vice president of communications at PM, confirmed that the company's lead ad agency LEO BURNETT is producing the spots, but claims PM has still not decided whether to use them. "We are doing a lot of research and study on youth smoking prevention to identify the right message and the right programs. . . Merlo added that Philip Morris has recently started a new department to research youth smoking and evaluate "what kind of proactive [measures]" Philip Morris should take to respond to the issue. . . Source: Scott Hume, "Philip Morris Weighing TV Effort Cigarette Maker May Air Burnett Spots To Battle Underage Smoking," ADWEEK, August 24, 1998.
  
  
• 08/27/98 MISSISSIPPI: Cops Get Tobacco Training Reuters Headlines
  
  Law enforcement officers across Mississippi are getting some training this week on how to keep tobacco products out of the hands of youngsters. They're armed with a new state law designed to crack down on businesses that sell to minors.
  
  
• 08/26/98 UTAH: Tobacco 'Buy Rate' Jumps In Davis Deseret News
  
  The average "buy rate" for tobacco in Davis County by undercover minors increased to 18.5 percent during the past fiscal year, up 11 percent from 1996-97. The county's not sure why the buy rate is up this time.
  
  
• 08/27/98 MINNESOTA: Retailers Get Cigarette Sales Reminder Reuters Headlines
  
  Duluth area retailer are getting a refresher course in preventing cigarette sales to people younger than 18. It's part of a state campaign by retail lobby groups and part of a national campaign by the tobacco industry. The MINNESOTA LICENSED BEVERAGE ASSOCIATION says most retailers are conscientious when it comes to preventing underage tobacco sales but... sometimes there are slip-ups.
  
  
• 08/27/98 EDITORIAL: CONNECTICUT: Ban Goes Up In Smoke Hartford (CT) Courant
  
  Seymour's ban on teenage smoking is better off dead. . . In Connecticut, the law already prohibits those under 18 from buying tobacco products. Towns can take stronger precautions, as Orange did, by barring tobacco products from being advertised or accessible where children congregate. It should be left to parents and moral guardians to mete out discipline to those who choose not to listen to reason.
  
  
• 08/28/98 PENNSYLVANIA: MT. PLEASANT school board OKs discipline policy Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
  
  Residents lauded Mt. Pleasant school directors for approving a new student discipline policy Thursday night, then urged the board to stand behind administrators' efforts to enforce it. The policy addresses how students could be disciplined for violating drug, alcohol and tobacco policies; . . . In other business, the board approved a motion designating outdoor smoking areas for faculty, staff and administrators. The motion was approved by a 5-4 vote with Scott, Jim Pawlikowsky, Chuck Phillip and Denver Hudec voting against the measure.
  
  
• 08/29/98 EDITORIAL: Anti-Smoking Ads Don't Work Salt Lake Tribune
  
  Statistics from Davis County on compliance with Utah's laws prohibiting sales of tobacco to minors demonstrate the folly of declaring war on teen tobacco use and then using anti-smoking advertisements as your main weapon. . . For reasons only its members understand, the Utah Legislature continues to be remiss in dealing with tobacco.
  
  
• 08/30/98 NEW JERSEY: Waldwick Senior Finds Challenge In Service Bergen (NJ) Record
  
  Extracurricular activities are classrooms without walls teaching unexpected lessons. Just ask Maura McCarthy of Waldwick High School's Class of '99. Maura, who ranks No. 2 in a class of about 80 students and is involved in numerous extracurricular activities, places a high value on the lessons they've taught her. Take, for example, the experience she's had in Teens Against Tobacco, which she joined when it was being formed this year, "because this year the smoke was so bad in our bathroom you didn't want to go into it," she said.
  
  
• 08/31/98 MISSISSIPPI: School Nurses Battle Tobacco Reuters Headlines
  
  Fifty school nurses are joining Mississippi's battle to keep youngsters tobacco-free. Part of the state's settlement of its lawsuit against the cigarette manufacturers is being used this year to pay for nurses in 50 schools from Batesville to Ocean Springs.
  
  
• 08/30/98 MARYLAND: Flashbacks Baltimore (MD) Sun
  
  25 years ago: The Carroll County school board extended the high-school student smoking policy at least until December when it will again review the issue. According to reports from individual high schools, conditions of lavatories improved. Also, suspension rates dropped. Now, however, the principal is under no obligation to suspend a first-time offender. -- the Carroll Record, Aug. 23, 1973.
  
  
• 08/31/98 Health Officials Join Forces In Anti-tobacco Advertising AP
  
  Attendees of what's believed to be the first international symposium on anti-tobacco media met in Boston on Monday to share details about successful anti-tobacco campaigns and plot strategy - like how to keep the message simple for kids.
  
  
• 08/31/98 FLORIDA: Pitch Is A Hit, But Will Teens Quit? St. Petersburg (FL) Times
  
  Come next year, it gets no bonus unless there is an actual reduction in teen smoking. . . Some of the early signs are promising. "Right now, we have evidence that people are seeing the ads and that their attitudes are changing," said Peter Mitchell, marketing director for the Tobacco Pilot Program. "That's the first step. Ultimately, though, we have to be able to go back and say we've made a difference in behavior."
  
  
• 08/31/98 LETTER: RJR/ New CAMEL Ads Don't Target Youth Fran Creighton VP-Marketing, Camel, Advertising Age via NewsEdge
  
  Bob Garfield's Ad Review "Cigarette ads revive the spirit of Joe Camel" (AA, July 27) would have been more appropriately titled "Adult smokers don't have a sense of humor," because that certainly was his angle. . . while Mr. Garfield might think the idea of the "Mighty Tasty" campaign's "Viewer Discretion Advised" notes mock health warnings, he could not be further from the truth. We take very seriously the statutory responsibility to place health warnings on our products and our advertisements . . . Our company does not engage in any activities whatsoever designed to encourage underaged persons to become smokers . . . We advertise to communicate with adult smokers, and humor helps us break through the cluttered cigarette marketplace . . . All of our brand communications are developed for, researched among and chosen to run because they are relevant to smokers 21 years of age and older . . . Our concern for the well-being of children is strongly held by each of us -- including me. We firmly oppose youth smoking and we do not leave our responsibilities as parents and citizens at home when we go to work each day for RJR.
  
  
• 08/31/98 LETTER: Teenagers Crucial To Companies' Success Clive Bates of ASH (London) answers Philip Morris' Aug. 24 letter. Financial Times (UK)
  
  All tobacco promotion reaches young people and this is one reason why the European Union has acted to ban it. Philip Morris has fought this measure every inch of the way but still feels able to exhort parents, educators and retailers to play their part in tackling youth smoking.
  
  
• 09/01/98 LETTER: MARYLAND: Tobacco Tax And Ethics The Journal (Northern Virginia)Bobby Sturgell, Republican candidate for the District 27 seat in the Maryland Senate
  
  The efforts of The MARYLAND CHILDREN'S INITIATIVE wants to increase the state excise tax on cigarettes by $1.50 per pack . . . . we already pay enough taxes . . . . . Second, I believe there are other, more effective methods to combat teen smoking. . . As it turns out, The Baltimore Sun recently reported that two vending machine trade associations and about a dozen vending companies were "especially generous" in contributing to a highly controversial campaign committee formed by Mr. Miller. Together, they contributed at least $10,000. Four months later, the bill described above was defeated.
  
  
• 09/02/98 MAINE: Feds, State Crack Down On Tobacco Reuters
  
  The U-S Food and Drug Administration is working with Maine's Department of Human Services to crack down on teen smoking. The two agencies will team up to inspect every retail tobacco outlet in Maine in the coming year.
  
  
• 09/02/98 Religion Helps Teens Just Say No To Drugs Washington Times
  
  Teens who have an active religious life and regularly eat dinner with their families are less likely to use drugs, alcohol and tobacco, according to a survey released yesterday. Religion "is a key factor in giving our children the moral values, skill and will to say 'no' to illegal drugs, alcohol and cigarettes," said Joseph A. Califano Jr., chairman of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (CASA), which released its fourth survey of teens and school officials on substance abuse.
• 09/01/98 Critical Age For Drug Exposure: 12 To 13 Reuters
  
  However, only 47% of 13-year-olds say their parents have discussed the dangers of drug use with them. The survey, which included 1,000 teens aged 12 to 17, 824 teachers and 822 school principals, was conducted by The Luntz Research Companies. From age 12 to 15, the number of teens who used cigarettes in the past month increased from 2% to 15%
• 09/01/98 Age 13 Critical in Teen-Drug Battle AP
  
  Just as children are becoming more exposed to drugs, their parents are losing influence over their lives, argues the survey from Columbia University's National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse. . . Overall, 41 percent of 17-year-olds said they had smoked marijuana, while 39 percent said they drank and 23 percent said they smoked in the previous 30 days. Among 12-year-olds, 9 percent reported drinking in the past month, while just 1 percent say they'd smoked recently and 2 percent reported using marijuana. The survey found those rates increased most sharply between ages 14 and 16, yet attitudes and exposure to drugs change earlier, with the most dramatic differences between ages 12 and 13. . . "In no other year do teens' perceptions and attitudes shift so markedly," the center concluded.
  
  
• 09/02/98 MINNESOTA: HENNEPIN COUNTY Offers Juveniles Tobacco Education Class Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
  
  Responding to a new state law, the county doubled the fine for underage tobacco users from $25 to $50 in February. Since Feb. 13, the suburbs of BLOOMINGTON, RICHFIELD and EDINA have offered classes on the effects of smoking as an alternative to court. Starting Tuesday, they were available countywide for anyone under 18 who's tagged for having, using or even trying to buy tobacco.
• 09/02/98 Class Gives Teens Chance To Reduce Fine, Quit Smoking St. Paul (MN) Pioneer Press
• 09/02/98 Tobacco Violations: The Consequences Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
  
  State law allows anyone younger than 18 to be cited if they possess, use or try to buy tobacco products. In Hennepin County,
  
  
• 09/03/98 Teens Talk About Peer Pressure
  
  Girls, boys, everybody, they all smoke, a lot of them smoke. It's a bad thing. Everybody sees everybody else doing it, and they're not getting hurt or anything, and they might try. And they get addicted and they try to get other people to do it.
  
  
• 09/03/98 ILLINOIS: Local Teens Hand Off Cell Phones Urging Representatives To Bloomberg
  
  Several Chicago teens will position themselves on Thursday, Sept. 3, at Dominick's Finer Foods, 1340 S. Canal, Chicago, beginning at 4 p.m. to hand off cellular phones and recruit passers-by to call their Representatives to oppose the House leadership's tobacco control proposal. Participating in the American Heart Association's National Calls for Kids Day, the students will voice their concerns about the House leadership's proposal which falls short of reducing tobacco use among children and urge their Representatives to vote for Illinois kids against Big Tobacco.
  
  
• 09/03/98 CALIFORNIA: MODESTO: JOSEPHINE Helps Teens 'Butt-out' Modesto Bee
  
  JOSEPHINE THE CAMEL is helping teens get the word out about the harmful effects of smoking. A prop belonging to Townsend Opera Players, she makes her first appearance Sept. 13 as part of an anti-tobacco street fair.
  
  
• 09/04/98 ALABAMA: State Kicks Off Anti-smoking Campaign Aimed At Teens AP
  
  Parents going to Alabama movie theaters this weekend may need a translator to understand a new MTV-style ad being used by the state health department to discourage smoking by teen-agers. But it's supposed to be that way. . . That's one of many teen-age slang words that fill the fast-moving ad. The ad is the linchpin in a two-year, $700,000 campaign by the state Department of Public Health to reverse the trend of increased smoking among Alabama teens. It will hit movie screens statewide this week, followed by similar ads on TV, radio and billboards.
  
  
• 09/04/98 NEW MEXICO States, USA Today
  
  One week after Los Alamos High School kicked off a new policy banning smoking on sidewalks at the school, Principal Lynn Saccaro dropped the rule. Groups of students were going farther away from campus to smoke along busy streets, she said.
  
  
• 09/05/98 MAINE: State Warns Tobacco Sellers They Can Expect Undercover Visits AP
  
  A $407,000 federal grant means Maine tobacco retailers can expect at least one undercover visit during the coming year to ensure they aren't selling cigarettes to underage customers, state officials say. The money from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will let police officers using student interns make about 4,500 undercover attempts to buy tobacco products, said John Archard of the state attorney general's office.
  
  
• 09/05/98 ALABAMA: ABC Board proposes fines for sale of cigarettes to minors AP
  
  Stores that sell cigarettes to teen-agers under 19 may soon have to pay state fines ranging from $200 to $1,000. The Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board has approved the proposed fines, although they still must go through a legislative review process before taking effect.
  
  
• 09/07/98 OPINION: A Mother's Advice About Drugs Marsha Rosenbaum, director of The Lindesmith Center-West, San Francisco Chronicle
  
  When people talk about "drugs," they are generally referring to illegal substances . . . These are not the only drugs that make you high. Alcohol, cigarettes and many other substances (like glue) cause intoxication of some sort. The fact that one drug or another is illegal does not mean one is better or worse for you. All of them temporarily change the way you perceive things and the way you think. . . cigarette smoking leads to addiction and sometimes lung cancer . . . Be skeptical and most of all, be safe. Love, Mom
  
  
• 09/07/98 Failing Grade for Safe Schools Plan U.S. has given $6 billion to combat drugs, violence. With little oversight, money has gone for marginally successful programs, investigation finds. LA Times
  
  "We are wasting money on programs that have been demonstrated not to work," said Delbert S. Elliott, director of the University of Colorado Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence. . . Yet enough scientific data exist to upset conventional wisdom and point the way to a new generation of promising programs, Elliott said. Of the 450 programs included in the Colorado study, 10 were deemed to be scientifically effective. . . The best prevention programs teach "social competency skills" to students who often resort to cigarettes, booze and drugs to resist peer pressure and overcome shyness in social situations, the research indicates. . . . A 1995 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. showed that kids who went through Botvin's course in seventh grade were 66% less likely to use tobacco, alcohol and drugs as high school seniors.
  
  
• 09/09/98 LETTER: To Eradicate Underage Smoking BRIAN BILBRAY U.S. Representative (R-Calif.), Washington Post
  
  As an original cosponsor of the strongest anti-tobacco bill on the Hill, the "Bipartisan NO Tobacco for Kids Act" (H.R. 3868), I was disappointed and surprised by The Washington Post's criticism of my amendment to outlaw possession and consumption of tobacco in the District by minors. Following the logic of the editorial, all laws against possession and consumption of alcohol by minors should also be thrown out, because we should focus "blame for addiction," as the editorial phrased it, solely on the alcohol and retail industries. . . It is fine to focus on points of purchase and industry responsibility, but the bottom line is that youth also should be held accountable for their actions.
  
  
• 09/08/98 ILLINOIS: LAKE IN THE HILLS Gives Minors Choice Of Tobacco Penalties Chicago (IL) Tribune
  
  Lake in the Hills' new tobacco ordinance will give minors caught with tobacco products some time to consider their options: pay a fine, do public service or discuss the matter with a judge.
  
  
• 09/08/98 MISSISSIPPI Lights Up Ad Review/ State Seeks Shop For $15 Mil Anti-smoking Campaign Advertising Age via NewsEdge
  
  Mississippi, the first state to settle a claim against tobacco marketers, is seeking an ad agency to handle a $12 million to $15 million two-year effort state Attorney General Michael Moore hopes will set a trend. "We have done a nine-monthlong research process on teen-age smoking and teen- age tobacco use and have come up with some different information from that used in . . . other states," Mr. Moore said. . . "I don't know how many times we told Congress that dynamics would change if they continued to make it a waiting game. Now my prognostication has proved accurate and the dynamics have changed. It has left us with a weaker hand. We were much stronger June 20 than we are today."
  
  
• 09/11/98 ILLINOIS: Aldermen Back Tobacco Ban For Minors Chicago (IL) Tribune
  
  DES PLAINES aldermen voted 6-1 this week to tentatively approve a measure barring minors from possessing tobacco inside city limits, under penalty of fines of $20 to $50 per offense. The ordinance, which prohibits youths under 18 years old from having tobacco, also sets fines of up to $500 against merchants who sell tobacco to minors, and fines of $20 to $50 against minors who misrepresent their ages to buy tobacco.
  
  
• 09/11/98 KANSAS/MISSOURI: Coffee Shops Card Young Smokers Kansas City Star
  
  And now, if you look young enough, you may get carded if you fire up a cigarette while sipping a latte. Teens often hang out at local coffee shops to enjoy a mocha java or cappuccino, a casual setting and, in some cases, a smoke. In Kansas and Missouri, however, lighting up in public is a crime if you're younger than 18. Coffee shops on both sides of the state line aren't shy about asking for identification.
  
  
• 09/11/98 TEXAS: Cheerleaders, School Ordered To Mediation Austin (TX) American-Statesman
  
  BROWNSBORO -- A judge has ordered nine high school cheerleaders into mediation with school officials who kicked them off the squad for smoking cigarettes at a cheerleading summer camp. State district Judge Carter W. Tarrance urged the two sides to try to work things out after hearing the cheerleaders' court challenge.
  
  
• 09/13/98 Nowhere To Turn Not directly on tobacco. Chicago (IL) Tribune
  
  What Barbara Cooke wanted was really quite simple: advice and information on raising a teenager. . . "They said, `You know what, we don't have any' " information, she said. . . "To me it was like finding a heroin needle," she said. "I hate cigarettes. He had grown up listening to me talking about how much I hated cigarettes, how sick I had been. "I have never seen him to this day with a cigarette. But every once in a while, I would find a cigarette, he would reek of cigarettes. "I started to realize how totally clueless I was. And if I was so clueless about that issue, what else didn't I know about?"
  
  
• 09/11/98 MASSACHUSETTS: Storefront Tobacco Ads Said To Target Students Boston Globe
  
  Massachusetts public health officials yesterday released a new statewide survey contending that convenience stores hawk cigarettes more aggressively near schools, but a top industry leader called the charge "absurd" and officials acknowledged possible flaws in the study. Checking 3,000 retail storefronts in 125 cities and towns, Department of Public Health volunteers found that more than half of storefront ads were for tobacco products. Health officials asserted that stores located within 1,000 feet of a school were more likely to have tobacco ads than those more than 1,000 feet away. "I'm sure it's part of an industry strategy to go to these areas," health commissioner Dr. Howard Koh said.
  
  
• 09/14/98 ILLINOIS: Cigarette Retailers Get Tough Chicago Sun Times
  
  Underage smokers are having a tougher time buying cigarettes in suburban Cook County, a county Public Health Department survey has found. Twenty percent of merchants offered to sell tobacco to teenage volunteers. In a 1996 survey, the rate was 37 percent. Democratic County Board President John Stroger, who is running for re-election, released the study Sunday.
  
  
• 09/15/98 ALASKA: School Board Votes To Ease Survey Policy Anchorage (AL) Daily News
  
  The Anchorage School Board on Monday night tentatively approved a less restrictive policy on student surveys . . . After the board has its final vote on the policy, it is expected to take up the issue of whether to participate in the Youth Risk Behavior Survey. The survey, last conducted in 1995, reports on how many kids smoke, use drugs, carry weapons and take other risks. . . He said it would show, for example, whether the new state tobacco tax has influenced teen smoking.
  
  
• 09/15/98 ILLINOIS: Teen Cigarette Sales Steady In Southland Daily Southtown
  
  Teens overall are having a tougher time buying cigarettes in suburban Cook County, but the rate of cigarette purchases by teens in the south suburbs has remained the same, according to a report released Monday. A sting done this summer found 58 of 289 stores ‹ or 20 percent ‹ offered to sell tobacco products to minors throughout the county. During the last sting in 1996, 37 percent of merchants offered to sell.
  
  
• 09/15/98 GEORGIA: Teens try to catch tobacco scofflaws Atlanta (GA) Journal & Constitution
  
  Armed with a couple of dollars and hours of training, groups of teens hired by the state Department of Human Resources will visit stores across Georgia to determine who is breaking the law by selling tobacco to minors. The tests begin this month
  
  
• 09/16/98 ILLINOIS: STREAMWOOD: Trustees Review Youth Tobacco Law Chicago (IL) Tribune
  
  Youths caught with tobacco products could be ticketed and fined $25 under a proposal to be voted on Sept. 24 by the Streamwood Village Board. Police Chief Gary D. O'Rourke asked village trustees to consider streamlining the current enforcement policy, which forces violators to post bond and appear in court. Upon conviction, an offender can be fined as much as $750.
  
  
• 09/16/98 TENNESSEE: Anti-Smoking Stings Begin Reuters Headlines
  
  (NASHVILLE) -- Keeping tobacco out of the hands of teenagers is the goal of a new statewide crackdown on smoking. Starting next month, authorities will use a 200- thousand dollar grant to set up sting operations to catch stores illegally selling cigarettes to minors. Nearly half the outlets that sell cigarettes will be checked. Businesses can be fined up to ten-thousand dollars for selling tobacco products to minors.
  
  
• 09/16/98 NEW JERSEY: Tuning in Whitman Bergen (NJ) Record
  
  GOVERNOR WHITMAN came to Bergen County on Tuesday with a message for young people: "Don't get sucked into smoking." To underscore her new public service announcement and illustrate the educational use of interactive sites, the governor unveiled her anti-tobacco exhortation at River Dell High School, which was linked via network to Wood-Ridge, Mahwah, and Hackensack high schools. The 30-second commercial sponsored by the state Department of Health and Senior Services is titled "Pass It On." . . . The new commercial is the latest in a series of anti-smoking ads produced by Health and Senior Services for its "Smoking. Don't Get Sucked In" campaign aimed at youngsters ages 11 to 17."
  
  
• 09/16/98 MISSOURI: City Monitors Tobacco Companies That Focus On Teen-agers "Missouri Spending . . . ," AP/St. Louis (MO) Post-Dispatch
  
  State and local officials joined with residents at a news conference Tuesday to release results of a survey detailing how tobacco is marketed and advertised in area stores. Under the banner of OPERATION STOREFRONT, 12 teams of young people, accompanied by adults, canvassed 71 retail stores . . . The message was clear, said Wilma Johnson of the MISSOURI DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH: "Who are they targeting when they put tobacco products next to the candy?" Operation Storefront is sponsored by the Missouri arm of the AMERICAN STOP SMOKING INTERVENTION STUDY (ASSIST), a joint project of the Missouri Department of Health and the American Cancer Society,
  
  
• 09/17/98 PENNSYLVANIA: PITTSBURGH: Local School Districts Seek Solutions To Limit Smoking In Bathrooms Pittsburgh (PA) Post-Gazette
  
  As a freshman at Mt. Lebanon, Gardner quickly discovered that a trip to the restroom, at least if one wished for a pleasant experience, couldn't be left to chance. Especially if the call of nature had to be answered in the art class wing. "Those bathrooms were the worst!" said Gardner, 13, crinkling her nose. "You'd go in smelling normal and come out smelling like you'd been smoking, and then the teachers would look at you funny."
  
  
• 09/17/98 ILLINOIS: Not Everybody's Doing It: Teen Substance Study Poll Finds Perceptions Don't Match The Reality Chicago (IL) Tribune
  
  In what researchers describe as the most comprehensive, countywide survey of substance use among teenagers conducted in the Chicago area, many 8th and 11th graders estimated that two or three times as many of their peers smoke, drink or use drugs as the study's statistics bear out. . . Even before the survey's release this month, Jones and the Lake County Health Department drew up a proposal for an anti-smoking program in Zion's middle and high schools that's based on research of student perceptions. Using input from local teens, the program would create posters and other media that emphasize the high percentage of students who do not smoke cigarettes and focus on individual students who abstain.
  
  
• 09/17/98 MARYLAND: Breaking The Rules Will Cost Students Washington Post
  
  Students who violate certain policies in Anne Arundel County public schools will for the first time have to pay to attend mandatory programs to address their behavior. . . . Under the new policy, students found smoking or in possession of tobacco products on school property will have to contribute toward the $120 a student cost of the Anti-Tobacco Use Program.
  
  
• 09/18/98 FDA Partners With Louisiana To Protect Children From Tobacco [M2 Communications, PREMIUM]
  
  The Food and Drug Administration has contracted with the Louisiana Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control to enforce FDA's new regulation that prohibits retailers from selling cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products to children under 18.
• 09/18/98 FDA Partners With New Mexico To Protect Children From Tobacco [M2 Communications, PREMIUM]
• 09/18/98 FDA Partners With New Hampshire To Protect Children From Tobacco [M2 Communications, PREMIUM]
  
  
• 09/18/98 MISSISSIPPI: Long Beach Retailers Learn How To Enforce Tobacco Sales Law Biloxi (MS) Sun Herald
  
  "The bottom line is keeping tobacco out of the hands of kids," Long Beach Police Chief Tom Bishop said last week at a seminar for retailers. A number of Long Beach retail representatives turned out at the City Hall Annex to learn about their responsibilities in enforcing the law.
  
  
• 09/18/98 FLORIDA: Ad Campaign Compares Tobacco With Hitler, Stalin AP
  
  The Truth Campaign, the state's youth-driven advertising campaign against tobacco, notches up the stakes in its latest television ad. The spot equates tobacco companies with Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin and the other great evils of all time in a spoof of an awards show that just happens to be set in hell.
  
  
• 09/19/98 OPINION: CALIFORNIA: Teen Smoking Too Hot An Issue To Be Ignored Maggie Sandoval, LA Times
  
  The Costa Mesa City Council was asked by a group of teenagers to become the first city in Orange County to pass a law that requires that cigarettes only be sold from behind the counter. The purpose was to cut down on kids and teens stealing cigarettes . . On Aug. 17, the proposed ordinance did not pass by a vote of 2-3. But two members of the City Council will be elected this November, and the teens plan to propose the ordinance again after that time. If you care about this issue, you may want to listen to what the candidates have to say.
  
  
• 09/20/98 OREGON: Students, Wyden Push Anti-tobacco Issue The Oregonian
  
  Stop advertising and selling tobacco products to minors, area high school students and U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said Saturday. The students held a news conference to publicize the results of two surveys they conducted earlier this year. . . Named Operation Storefront, the survey targeted 141 stores near the high schools and on streets commonly traveled near those schools. The students were looking for signs that retailers aim tobacco advertising at children. The survey found that 57 percent of those polled had tobacco advertising below three feet and 27 percent had it near candy displays. The students found an average of 51 tobacco advertisements per store -- about 42 inside and nine outside.
  
  
• 09/20/98 FLORIDA: Can Teen Smoking Be Cut In 2 Years? Orlando (FL) Sentinel
  
  Mitchell works for the fledgling Florida Pilot Program on Tobacco Control. Its 30 employees work in the basement of a Tallahassee state building, not even a small sign outside to mark the location. Their spokesman has a pierced eyebrow. The mood is that of a clandestine, resistance movement. At tobacco control, all is fair when your opponent addicts kids and kills hundreds of thousands of people a year.
  
  
• 09/20/98 NEW HAMPSHIRE: Youth Smoking AP
  
  Federal Food and Drug officials are paying New Hampshire to conduct about 4,500 "stings" over the next year to make sure retailers aren't selling tobacco to minors. Minors accompanied by an adult will attempt to buy tobacco in the stores. The government is paying the state more than $293,000 to enforce the FDA's new regulation prohibiting retailers from selling cigarettes and smokeless tobacco to youths under age 18.
  
  
• 09/21/98 LETTER: Common Sense Lost With Tobacco Debate George Stevens, president, and Eugenie Stevens, vice president of Wichita Tobacco and Candy Co., Wichita Business Journal
  
  Like the more than 2 million Americans with tobacco industry-related jobs, we realize that a true reduction in underage tobacco use cannot happen in a vacuum. We support legislation to reduce and, hopefully, eliminate youth access to tobacco. We are even prepared to change the way we do business to achieve that goal. Reducing underage smoking is "Everybody's Business," which is, not coincidentally, the theme of a new public service campaign launched this summer by Attorney General Carla Stovall and the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. It's a common-sense approach that says reduction in underage smoking can best be achieved if government, the tobacco industry, distributors, retailers, parents and community leaders all join forces to educate youth on smoking and prevent youth access. As voters, it's our responsibility to remind Congress that it's time for common sense to again prevail.
  
  
• 09/21/98 At Military Schools, a Stricter Definition of Learning Graph in Washington Post
  
  At Randolph-Macon, Cohen lives by an abundance of rules. . . "I never thought I'd be here," said Cohen, whose parents sent her to the school after she failed courses as a freshman at Marshall and experimented with cigarettes and alcohol. "I didn't want to come here. I'd never been in a private school, let alone boarding school, military school. I didn't realize it was going to be like this. When I got here, it was a big shock." . . . Anyone caught smoking faces a suspension
  
  
• 09/24/98 CALIFORNIA: Mayor's plan doesn't quite clear the air Contra Costa (CA) Times
  
  County health officials and youth organizers left a City Council meeting last week believing that Martinez Mayor Michael Menesini's tobacco legislation blew too much second-hand smoke. . . The legislation caught fire in part because it was being supported by the California Grocer's Association, whose own proposals are strikingly similar: and ineffective, health officials said. "I'm not sure what he had in mind," said Julie Freestone, a media coordinator with Contra Costa County's Tobacco Free Youth Ordinance.
  
  
• 09/26/98 GEORGIA: Group Hopes To Raise Tax On Cigarettes Augusta (GA) Chronicle
  
  An Atlanta-based group, COALITION FOR A HEALTHY AND RESPONSIBLE GEORGIA, recently announced a statewide awareness campaign aimed at reducing tobacco use in teen-agers. The campaign will include educating young people as well as adults about the sobering statistics concerning cigarettes and other forms of tobacco.
  
  
• 09/25/98 MICHIGAN: Tobacco-sales Bill Would Add To Fine Detroit (MI) News
  
  Law enforcement officials and state Rep. EILEEN DEHART, D-WESTLAND, are scheduled to propose Monday an increase in the penalties for the sale of tobacco and alcohol to minors. . . Violators who sell tobacco to minors can be fined $50, according to state law. Proposed fines would start at $700 and increase for repeat offenses, Ficano said. Judges would be able to close a store for up to one year on the third tobacco-sale offense.
  
  
• 09/25/98 ILLINOIS: Village Streamlines Enforcement Of Its Tobacco Law Chicago (IL) Tribune
  
  Youths caught with tobacco products will no longer need to post bond or appear in court under an amendment to an ordinance approved Thursday night by the STREAMWOOD VILLAGE Board. Instead, they will receive a ticket and be subject to a $25 fine.
  
  
• 09/28/98 MISSOURI: U.S. SURGEON GENERAL Visits St. Louis Area, Fields Queries From Middle School Students St. Louis (MO) Post-Dispatch
  
  SATCHER later mentioned that girls who become active in sports by middle school are less likely to smoke or become sexually active too early. "Every state ought to require physical education, kindergarten through grade 12."
  
  
• 09/28/98 MISSOURI: Smokers Can Get Help To Stop; Ban Is On Way St. Louis (MO) Post-Dispatch
  
  The FOX SCHOOL DISTRICT is preparing for a ban on smoking on school campuses by offering smoking-cessation classes to teachers and students. Paul Burch, the district's security director, told the board that ban was to take effect on Thursday, the date set last year when the smoke-free policy was adopted by the board. The policy says smoking will be banned in all school buildings on school grounds and in school buses and other vehicles.
  
  
• 09/29/98 CALIFORNIA: SF: Boardwatch San Francisco Chronicle
  
  At its weekly meeting yesterday, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors: APPROVED: Spending $1.5 million from a tobacco-case court settlement on programs to discourage people under age 18 from smoking. A small portion of the money will go to hire two juvenile decoys who will test whether merchants are selling tobacco to underage teens. They will be paid $6 an hour and will work 14 hours a week.
  
  
• 09/29/98 IDAHO: Retailers Contend New Restrictions Won't Work; Funding In Question AP
  
  Enforcement is three months away, but Idaho retailers already are objecting to new tobacco access and sales restrictions. They are unconvinced the law will make much of a dent in underage tobacco use, and it is unclear how the state will pay for the program. . . Enforcement is expected to cost about $250,000 a year. But legislative supporters said there was plenty of money available through various federal programs, including $6 million a year in substance abuse prevention funds. So far, that money has been elusive.
  
  
• 09/26/98 TEXAS: Judge Backs 9 Cheerleaders In Smoking Case AP/Dallas (TX) Morning News
  
  District Judge Carter Tarrance, in a temporary injunction, ruled the "cheerleader constitution" document that was the basis for kicking the girls off the squad was not legally binding because it had not been made democratically or approved by the school board. "To do so otherwise could result in a multiplicity of arbitrary, inconsistent rules that may or may not reflect the citizens' standards for conduct and for consequences of disobedience," Judge Tarrance ruled. "This ruling undermines the discipline of students," said Brownsboro Independent School District Superintendent Elton Caldwell.
  
  
• 09/26/98 TEXAS: Stomping Out Teen Smoking San Antonio (TX) Express News
  
  To put an end to the upward trend in teen smoking, a number of area groups, including the City of San Antonio and the American Cancer Society, sponsored the first Youth Tobacco Summit on Monday. The summit, which attracted more than 1,500 junior high students to the Convention Center, focused on stopping kids from starting smoking -- from ever placing a cigarette between their lips.
  
  
• 09/30/98 UTAH: Kids Pledge To Live Smoke Free; Athletes Kick Off 'Buff Don't Puff' Campaign Deseret News (Utah)
  
  Athlete STEVE YOUNG says he may not be buff, but he sure doesn't puff. . . "I think I'm cool and I never smoked," he says as he visits Utah County classrooms via videotape as part of the "Buff Don't Puff" campaign designed to convince youngsters to leave tobacco alone. . . . Sponsored by INTERMOUNTAIN HEALTH CARE in cooperation with BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY and the UTAH COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, the campaign features well-known athletes
  
  
• 09/30/98 Youth Tobacco Summit Aimed Toward Prevention Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
  
  So BERNDT asked friends and classmates to bring promotional tobacco merchandise such as backpacks, key chains, lighters, fanny packs, purses and T-shirts emblazoned with tobacco company logos, so he could build a tobacco " Wall of Shame." Berndt' s wall and a new middle-school curriculum titled " Smoke and Mirrors: Media Literacy and Tobacco, " both were unveiled Tuesday. The prevention curriculum is intended to teach students in grades 5 through 8 how clever advertising and marketing techniques attempt to seduce them into smoking, such as by linking smoking to thinness and rebellion.
• 09/29/98 MINNESOTA: Tobacco Youth Summit to Unveil First Curriculum to Incorporate Information Uncovered in Historic Tobacco Trials PR Newswire
  
  The compelling findings and statistics uncovered in the landmark lawsuit brought by the State of Minnesota against the tobacco companies are being used -- for the first time -- to educate young people across the nation. The findings have helped create the SMOKE AND MIRRORS: MEDIA LITERACY & TOBACCO curriculum for middle-school students. The national introduction of this curriculum to educators and students will take place in St. Paul at Bandana Square on September 29 as part of the "SMOKE AND MIRRORS TOBACCO YOUTH SUMMIT."
  
  
• 10/02/98 CALIFORNIA: YOLO Tobacco Ban Reuters Headlines
  
  Yolo County supervisors have approved an ordinance to keep tobacco products behind store counters. The ordinance is designed to keep tobacco out of reach and sight of children. All county store clerks will now have to hand customers tobacco products on request from behind the counter.
  
  
• 10/02/98 OPINION: CANADA: Young Smokers Face Trial Dan Brown, Ottawa (Ontario) Citizen
  
  The students were told to butt out, taken into the school, and waited while citations were written. "Did smoke tobacco in a prohibited place contrary to Tobacco Control Act sec. 9(1)." . . Most at risk is the salesperson behind the counter. . . That the tables have been turned on underage smokers goes into the records in this corner as: kind of neat.
  
  
• 10/02/98 LETTER: Tobacco ads near schools are no accident Howard Koh, MD Commissioner Massachusetts Department Of Public Health, Boston Globe
  
  The Globe said the difference may not be statistically significant, but that is incorrect. There is less than one chance in 100 that these results could be obtained by chance alone. . . The tobacco industry continues to make every storefront a battleground for the health of our youth. I encourage everyone to conduct his or her own personal Operation Storefront the next time you pass a convenience store near a school. Stop and count the overwhelming number of tobacco ads.
  
  
• 10/03/98 OHIO: Rally Pushes Bill To Raise Age For Cigarettes Columbus (OH) Dispatch
  
  "Ohio has a major problem," said DR. ROB CRANE, president of Tobacco-to-21, a group that advocates raising the age limit from 18. He cited statistics showing Ohio has more teen smokers and more smokers among men ages 18 to 28 than any other state. He also cited a statistic from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta that smoking among teens nationwide rose by 43 percent between 1991 and 1996
• 10/02/98 OHIO: National Figures at Ohio State University Medical School Forum Discuss Kids & Tobacco PR Newswire
  
  Novelli made these comments at a press conference and forum this afternoon at The Ohio State University Health Sciences Center on "Kids and Tobacco: Where Do We Go From Here?" The event, co-sponsored by TOBACCO-TO-21 and The OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES CENTER, included a panel discussion on how Ohio and the nation should address the huge increase in teen smoking and congressional failure to agree on a national tobacco settlement. Invited panelists included BILL NOVELLI, President, National Center for Tobacco-Free Kids; VICTOR DENOBLE, Ph.D., former Phillip Morris research scientist; Senator GRACE DRAKE (R-Solon), Chair, Ohio Senate Health Committee and Senate Bill 221 sponsor; CHARLES R. (ROCKY) SAXBE, lead counsel for Ohio's lawsuit against the tobacco industry. The moderator was Dr. ROB CRANE, OSU Department of Family Medicine and Tobacco-To-21 founder and President.
  
  
• 10/03/98 OPINION: Why The Massachusetts Anti-Cigarette Campaign Won't Work Alan Brody, Tobacco BBS
  
  Just saying no does nothing for the teen that might be a candidate for Prozac but settles on a $2 a day cigarette habit instead. What do you say to the proud misfit who latches onto Marlboro, the feminist with fluctuating weight who goes for Virginia Slims, or the teen with raging the hormones gravitating toward Camel? . . . The real enemy then is not so much smoking as it is the addiction. If necessary, we should allow teens a revocable encounter with smoking . . . The only way you can fight tobacco is to take into account each of its attributes -- whether you despise them or not -- and provide a viable response not a finger-wagging
  
  
• 10/03/98 OPINION: California Tobacco Control Program Fails To Stem Rising Tide Of Teen Smoking Rick Kropp, Tobacco BBS
  
  The California Tobacco Control Program needs to be re-organized, re-designed and revamped. It needs to refocus its resources and energy on addressing the numerous and complex causes of teen smoking with multi-level, comprehensive prevention and cessation programs delivered through a flexible, decentralized statewide system.
  
  
• 10/03/98 OPINION: Commentary: Tobacco Companies Find Ways To Reach Youth Rick Kropp, Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
  
  In his Sept. 19 Counterpoint, "Story ignored tobacco researcher's earlier studies," tobacco retailer spokesman THOMAS A. BRIANT attempts to mislead both the Star Tribune's journalists and its readers. . . Briant's article is a clever attempt to cover up the well-known fact that retail outlets are a major source of tobacco products for minors, and a lesser-known fact that retail outlets are a significant, effective venue for tobacco advertising and marketing, much of it targeting young people. . . These environmental cues not only support the use of tobacco but are also cleverly designed to promote impulse purchases by first-time tobacco users, including youth, women, ethnic minorities and low socioeconomic populations.
  
  
• 10/04/98 MICHIGAN: FARMINGTON HILLS: Sting Finds Third Of Stores Sell Cigarettes To Minors Detroit (MI) News
  
  A sting using teen-age decoys Friday found a third of area merchants illegally selling cigarettes, despite a city ordinance requiring clerks to check identification of buyers if they look younger than 26 years of age. Retailers caught selling tobacco products to anyone under the age of 18 face up to a $500 fine and 90 days in jail.
  
  
• 10/05/98 U.S. FDA/ FDA partners with WEST VIRGINIA to protect children from tobacco M2 PRESSWIRE /NewsEdge (PREMIUM)
  
  
• 10/05/98 U.S. FDA/ FDA partners with OKLAHOMA to protect children from tobacco M2 PRESSWIRE /NewsEdge (PREMIUM)
  
  
• 10/06/98 Risky Actions Send Teen Death Rate Soaring USA Today
  
  "They do things like drink and smoke and become sexually active," he says. "A lot of what we see in adolescents reflects some of the worst (excesses) of adult society." Given this extended adolescence, researchers now divide young people into three age groups, each facing distinct challenges: "preadolescents" of 10 to 14, adolescents of 15 to 19, and young adults of 20 to 24. While preadolescents are forming the habits that will govern their health later in life, adolescents are taking risks and testing the bounds of their independence. Young adults have more freedom to engage in promiscuous sex and other risky behaviors.
  
  
• 10/06/98 MARYLAND: Briefs from Glen Burnie, Baltimore Baltimore (MD) Sun
  
  Maryland has received a federal grant to determine if cigarettes are still being sold illegally to minors, said the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The Food and Drug Administration awarded the $392,278 contract to the department. Beginning next year, minors under the supervision of health inspectors will try to buy cigarettes or smokeless tobacco to see if merchants are obeying the law.
  
  
• 10/07/98 Store Owner Steamed Over Cigarette Sting, Says He Was Entrapped Naples (FL) Daily News
  
  A Naples store owner is scheduled to appear in court today to challenge a ticket he received from city police for allegedly selling a pack of cigarettes to an underage girl. According to Naples police, Cyril Gibbons, 66, is the first store owner in the city to challenge a ticket received under the new tobacco enforcement effort. . . The program has come under fire from Naples city council member FRED TARRANT who calls it a "Fagin, Artful Dodger approach." Tarrant and the rest of the council is scheduled to discuss the program . . . Oct. 19
  
  
• 10/07/98 CALIFORNIA: Council Bans Self-service Cigarette Sales; Teen Tells Of Stealing Cartons San Diego (CA) Union-Tribune
  
  Dramatic testimony from teen-agers who told how they and their peers are lured into smoking prompted the San Diego City Council yesterday to unanimously adopt a ban on the self-service sale of cigarettes. . . The proposal is expected to come up for a final vote later this month.
  
  
• 10/07/98 CALIFORNIA: Teen Smoking, Obesity Rise in SAN MATEO County San Francisco Chronicle
  
  Teenage smoking and the rate of obesity among youths in San Mateo County are at alarmingly high levels, the county's health officer told the Board of Supervisors yesterday. Dr. Scott Morrow presented a 130-page report, examining the county's progress against nationally set goals for the year 2000. . . Last year, the county's office of education conducted a tobacco use survey of San Mateo County high school seniors and found that 40 percent of males and 41 percent of females smoked. . . Cigarette smoking was highest among white and Hispanic teenagers, specifically girls in both ethnic groups. Cigar smoking was a close second for all ethnic groups and was higher for blacks, according to the report.
  
  
• 10/08/98 FDA partners with the District of Columbia to protect children from tobacco M2 /NewsEdge (PREMIUM)
• 10/08/98 FDA partners with the Michigan to protect children from tobacco M2 /NewsEdge (PREMIUM)
• 10/07/98 FDA partners with CONNECTICUT to protect children from tobacco M2 /NewsEdge (PREMIUM)
• 10/07/98 FDA partners with SOUTH CAROLINA to protect children from tobacco MS /NewsEdge (PREMIUM)
• 10/07/98 FDA partners with The VIRGIN ISLANDS to protect children from tobacco M2 /NewsEdge (PREMIUM)
  
  
• 10/07/98 COALITION FOR A HEALTHY AND RESPONSIBLE GEORGIA Presents Facts on Teen Tobacco Use PR Newswire
  
  * Tobacco use costs Georgia almost $1 billion annually in direct medical costs. * $18 million is spent by tobacco companies each day to advertise and promote cigarettes. * Georgia's tax on cigarettes -- the 5th lowest rate in the country -- has not been increased in nearly 30 years. * For every 10% increase in the price of tobacco products, tobacco use by young people decreases 12% to 14%. * Georgia has no tax on spit tobacco products.
• 10/07/98 GEORGIA Group Urges Increase For Cigarette Tax After 27 Years The Wall Street Journal (pay registration)
  
  a Georgia public-health coalition plans to again try persuading lawmakers to boost the excise tax on cigarettes. But the Coalition for a Healthy and Responsible Georgia, including representatives of the American Cancer Society, American Heart Association and American Lung Association, admits it has a tough row to hoe in a tobacco state. . . In 1971, lawmakers boosted the tax 50% to 12 cents a pack from eight cents.
  
  
• 10/08/98 WASHINGTON: More Teens Using Pot, Alcohol, Tobacco Reuters Headlines
  
  A new survey finds that more Washington state teens are smoking, drinking and doing drugs. The Family Policy Council surveyed 14-thousand kids from sixth to eleventh grades. Kids say a close family unit and community support would discourage them from getting into trouble.
  
  
• 10/08/98 MICHIGAN: State Gets Federal Aid In Fighting Youth Tobacco Sales Detroit (MI) Free Press
  
  The state received a $650,000 contract from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration this week to conduct 6,482 unannounced tobacco buys at retail stores.
  
  
• 10/08/98 TEXAS: Fewer Students Using Alcohol, Study Suggests Graph in Fort Worth (TX) Star-Telegram
  
  * The rate of tobacco use remained roughly the same, with 52 percent of seventh- through 12th-graders having tried tobacco products. . . * Among fourth- through sixth-graders, 13.8 percent had tried tobacco, 26 percent had tried alcohol, 11.7 percent had tried inhalants and 2.7 percent had tried marijuana.
  
  
• 10/08/98 ARIZONA: Anti-tobacco Ads Are Credited With Helping Smokers To Quit Valley Briefs, The Arizona Republic
  
  Twenty-seven percent of the young people and 23 percent of adults surveyed say they quit smoking after watching anti-tobacco commercials by the Arizona Department of Health Services. But the early evaluation of the campaign aired over the past two years also reveals that no fewer than 23 percent of teenagers say their smoking habits increased after watching the ads. "There's always going to be a group of people who want to defy,"
  
  
• 10/08/98 FLORIDA: NAPLES: Trial Of Man Charged With Selling Tobacco To A Minor Postponed Naples (FL) Daily News
  
  Judge Lawrence Martin postponed the trial of Cyril Gibbons, 66, until Oct. 28 at 2 p.m. after Gibbons' attorney, Philip Hamilton, sought a delay in the case on Wednesday. Hamilton requested the continuance on behalf of Gibbons at Collier County Court after telling Martin that he was not yet ready for trial.
  
  
• 10/09/98 Statement from Tobacco-Free Kids President Regarding Smoking Among U.S. Teens US Newswire
  
  These findings provide concrete evidence that more than 3,300 kids become regular smokers every day. They are in stark contrast to the propaganda from the National Smokers Alliance, a front group for the tobacco industry, which claims that the "3,000 kids" figure is a "lie." With youth tobacco use on the rise, strong measures are needed to combat this pediatric epidemic . . . What isn't needed is more rhetoric and propaganda designed to turn attention away from this terrible problem.
• 10/09/98 Ohio Group Says Joe Camel was to Blame for Increase in Teen Smoking Rates PR Newswire
  
  Dr. Rob Crane of The Ohio State University Department of Family Medicine agrees with critics that the character was a "blatant example of cigarette marketing aimed at children." "Current statistics . . . are no secret to the tobacco industry which has known all along their ads were seducing teens into buying their products. History repeats itself. For years the tobacco industry lied about relying on the nation's youth to make money on their products and they continue to do precisely that," said Crane. "What's worse is they're making a mockery out of anti-smoking activists...portraying us like killjoys. They're the ones killing the future of our nation's youth."
• 10/08/98 More Teens Starting To Smoke, Says U.S. Study Reuters
• 10/08/98 INCIDENCE OF INITIATION OF CIGARETTE SMOKING -- UNITED STATES Abstract, MMWR, CDC
  
  The findings from the analysis indicated that, during 1988--1996 among persons aged 12--17 years, the incidence of initiation of first use increased by 30% and of first daily use increased by 50%, and 1,226,000 persons aged [under] 18 years became daily smokers in 1996.
• 10/08/98 CDC Tobacco Information Site
• 10/08/98 CDC Pinpoints Teen Smoking Habits AP
  
  The number of American youths taking up smoking as a daily habit jumped 73 percent between Joe Camel's debut in 1988 and 1996, the government said Thursday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said tobacco ads that rely heavily on giveaways and kid-friendly cartoons are partly to blame. More than 1.2 million Americans under 18 started smoking daily in 1996, up from 708,000 in 1988, the CDC estimated. . . "It's terrible news," said Dr. Gary Giovino, chief epidemiologist for the CDC's Office on Smoking and Health. "There's a lot of important things to consider, which include the increase in tobacco ads that have a youth focus. The appearance of tobacco smoking in the media has just skyrocketed lately."
  
  
• 10/09/98 LETTER: UTAH: Encouraging Theft Carl Dustin Clark, Salt Lake (UT) Tribune
  
  I can confidently state that in the year I have spent as a convenience store clerk, I have never failed to I.D. anyone who didn't look at least 30. Yet at least one minor leaves my store with cigarettes every night. . . The cigarette companies aren't just paying for display space, they're ensuring that minors can access cigarettes without clerk intervention. . . You can help stop this. Encourage our lawmakers to pass laws which discourage "shoppability" (shopliftability) of cigarettes in stores. Help me stand between minors and cigarettes to ensure that everyone who leaves my store with tobacco has presented their I.D. for inspection. Please, help me do my job!
  
  
• 10/13/98 WISCONSIN: Anti-smoking Ordinance Targets Clerks Badger Herald
  
  A new city ordinance proposal would place more responsibility on store clerks for selling cigarettes and other tobacco products to minors. Under current city policy, the store at which a youth purchases the product is fined. But this proposal would both raise fines and place more of the burden on the individuals behind the counter, many of whom are UW-Madison students.
  
  
• 10/13/98 CALIFORNIA: Just Say Yes Los Angeles Times
  
  Gary Zelesky, who tours the country giving presentations at schools and professional conferences, spoke at Crescenta Valley High Monday. The assembly was part of the district's anti-tobacco campaign. Zelesky will speak at all Glendale Unified high schools this week
  
  
• 10/13/98 FDA partners with Delaware to protect children from tobacco NewsEdge
  
  
• 10/12/98 DELAWARE: Teen Cigarette Stings Planned Reuters
  
  More teens will soon be helping Delaware crack down on teen smoking. They'll be going undercover with agents from the Alcoholic Beverage Control division. Officials say it's part of a year-long sting operation made possible by a 100-thousand-dollar grant from the Food and Drug Administration.
  
  
• 10/10/98 CALIFORNIA: Tobacco law in East P.A. San Jose Mercury-News
  
  A campaign against teen smoking has begun rolling down the Peninsula, with EAST PALO ALTO becoming the latest city to crack down on stores that sell cigarettes to minors. The city council this week unanimously approved an ordinance requiring stores selling cigarettes or other tobacco products to get a $25 city permit.
  
  
• 10/10/98 Substance abuse in Clay County Florida Times-Union
  
  Thankfully, school officials said, the kids who reported that they smoked, drank and took drugs were in the minority of those surveyed - from 3.7 percent admitting to cocaine use within the past year to 32.3 percent admitting to smoking cigarettes in the past year. . . 'The results of the survey indicate that there is a community drug problem in Clay County," said a summary of the survey, which was conducted in the spring by PRIDE Inc., a national drug-prevention organization. The survey showed that tobacco was the "drug of choice," with 15.8 percent of the seventh-graders surveyed saying they smoked cigarettes monthly.
  
  
• 10/11/98 EDITORIAL: The Surge in Teen Smoking New York Times
  
  This disastrous trend will not reverse itself without strong curbs on tobacco marketing and sharp increases in cigarette prices, two strategies that health experts say are crucial to reducing youth consumption. But the Republican Congress, unwilling to break free of the well-financed tobacco lobby, refused to approve legislation this year that would have used these strategies. A tentative deal negotiated by some state attorneys general with the tobacco companies to settle state lawsuits against the industry also appears inadequate to combat teen smoking. . . any deal accepted by the attorneys general must make reducing teen smoking its primary goal.
  
  
• 10/09/98 EDITORIAL: Who's Kidding Whom? Sure Teens Are Target San Antonio Express-News
  
  "It just doesn't make sense to say Joe Camel fueled youth smoking," RJR's spokeswoman Jan Smith said. "We have long said that campaign was aimed at adult smokers, period." Get real.. . Americans shouldn't rest easy until teen tobacco advertising is outlawed in every state. Even then, keeping kids from smoking will be dicey.
  
  
• 12/14/98 EDITORIAL: Arbiting taste The Business Journal
  
  the networks were quick last week to take $100 million in so-called public service advertising from the tobacco tycoons at PHILIP MORRIS. The ads are supposedly meant to discourage teen-agers from smoking, on the grounds that you have be your own person and not do things just because other people put pressure on you. (That's what the tobacco companies always tell grown-up voters, too, when laws to prohibit smoking in public places are proposed.) But the ads and their geeky teen-agers deftly fail to mention the fact that smoking makes you die young, with bad breath -- two arguments that are proven deterrents to teen smoking.
  
  
• 12/14/98 OPINION: BOB GARFIELD: Motive entirely trivial as PM raps smoking Advertising Age
  
  If they don't exactly neutralize the Marlboro man, they are nonetheless unprecedented in their challenge of the very psychology--the projection of cool individuality--that has propelled the most successful brand in the history of commerce. To undermine its own selling strategy is an extraordinary measure for any marketer to take. Who cares what the motivation is? In this case, the naysayers should just shut up.
  
  
• 12/14/98 MI: State signs deal to limit chewing-tobacco giant Detroit Free Press
  
  The Michigan attorney general has signed a deal that will prohibit the nation's largest chewing-tobacco company from certain types of advertisements -- a move aimed to prevent marketing to kids. U.S. Tobacco won't be able to advertise on billboards, buses, caps and other merchandise. It will be prohibited from using cartoon characters, marketing to kids or handing out free products to minors.
  
  
• 12/16/98 DE: CR approves smoke-free environment Delaware State News
  
  The CAESAR RODNEY School District Board of Education voted unanimously to adopt a policy for a smoke-free environment in school buildings and on school grounds to be implemented July 1999. The vote was made at the board's regular meeting Tuesday night.
  
  
• 12/15/98 IL: LAKE COUNTY:Adults Gear Up To Fight Smoking Chicago Tribune
  
  "[B]y 7th grade, kids have already made the decision," said Karl Kopp, director of the Lake County chapter of the American Lung Association. That philosophy is behind the Teens Against Tobacco Use "peer-mentoring" program that began last spring in Lake County, which requires trained adults to act as facilitators. About a dozen adults attended facilitator training classes last week at the College of Lake County in Grayslake.
  
  
• 12/15/98 KY: JEFFERSON COUNTY: B&W funds anti-smoking push The Courier-Journal
  
  Jefferson County government will launch a three-year campaign to keep young people from smoking, using more than $182,000 from Louisville-based Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., county Judge-Executive Dave Armstrong announced yesterday. Armstrong said the county Health Department will work with the Louisville Youth Alliance, and an as-yet-to-be-appointed 10- to 12-member task force to find ways to keep children from smoking and to encourage those who already smoke to stop.
  
  
• 12/16/98 OPINION: CRAIG MCDONALD: Carrying the can for youth culture The Scotsman
  
  A LOT of things are blamed on us young 'uns. . . All this indulgence, it is claimed, will result in us costing the health service billions of pounds as it struggles to treat us for obesity, lung cancer and other such nasties. . . It's not our fault. How many of the young people of today invented the television, started fast food chains, are concerned with the retailing of cigarettes and alcohol . . . However, as has been shown, 15-year-olds, or a percentage of them, do drink, smoke and gamble. Why? Because at 15, you see all three as being things you want to try. . . This highlights one of the best things about being young - the ability to experiment.
  
  
• 12/16/98 MN: OPINION: KATHERINE KERSTEN: Lining up for the tobacco money Minneapolis Star Tribune
  
  Fortunately, there is a clear way to curb youth smoking -- we can vigorously enforce the laws on the books. In addition, we can fine teen smokers or suspend their driving privileges. This, of course, this won't cost a fraction of $650 million. As things stand now, a 21-person board -- 15 of whose members are appointed by the attorney general -- is about to begin doling out massive sums of antitobacco money. This board is not subject to legislative oversight, or the gift ban and other safeguards of the Ethics in Government Act. As Gov. Carlson says, it's a scandal waiting to happen. Minnesotans had better watch closely, or their tobacco windfall may go right down the drain.
  
  
• 12/15/98 ABIGAIL TRAFFORD: Teens, Depression & Drugs The Washington Post
  
  Indeed, the teenage years are a national challenge for both parents and children. It's the period when each generation gets forged into adulthood. It's also a high-risk time of experimentation--which often includes taking illegal drugs as well as drinking too much and smoking. Until recently the general anti-drug message to kids was simple and focused: Don't do it. Drug abuse will fry your brains and you'll end up a failure. But this one-size-fits-all strategy to prevent drug abuse has missed a whole subgroup of teenagers at risk. Alan I. Leshner, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, divides teenage drug abusers into two general categories: the Sensation Seekers, who are the majority, and the Self-Medicators, who make up a minority.
  
  
• 12/19/98 MS: OCEAN SPRINGS: Clerk sells tobacco to minor in sting Biloxi Sun Herald
  
  Investigators said the clerk who was taped selling cigarettes to the undercover juvenile will be warned this time. Investigators will visit the four stores that did not sell cigarettes to the minor and tell them that they passed the test.
  
  
• 12/18/98 IL: Village Poised To Crack Down On Underage Tobacco Possession Chicago Tribune
  
  ROUND LAKE BEACH The Village Board has passed an amended tobacco ordinance, and minors under 18 will be actively prohibited and fined for the purchase or possession of tobacco products.
  
  
• 12/18/98 KS: Retailers combat tobacco sales to minors with new floor plans, scanners Kansas City Star
  
  Area grocers are using new floor plans, high-tech point-of-sale scanners and age-validation software to prevent tobacco sales to underage customers. "Retailers who are going to be in the tobacco business have to look for ways to stop underage sales," said Jim Sheehan, executive director of the Kansas Food Dealers Association and the Retail Grocers Association of Greater Kansas City. "A store-within-a-store concept is the wave of the future.
  
  
• 12/17/98 CA: WALNUT CREEK tackling drug, alcohol problems facing the young Contra Costa Times
  
  But a group of concerned parents, educators, police officers and city officials have pooled their resources to come up with an effective solution to the drug, alcohol and tobacco problems that face young people. "We want to try to do something communitywide," said Las Lomas High School Principal Pat Lickiss. "This is everybody's responsibility." . . Lickiss said the ad hoc committee is brainstorming to come up with a way to address youth substance abuse, educate parents, train teachers and help students.
  
  
• 12/21/98 EDITORIAL: AD AGE: Contract Out ($$) NewsEdge
  
  Philip morris compromises the credibilty of its new $100 million youth anti- smoking campaign by keeping it under in-house control rather than contracting it out to an outside party. . . As this effort evolves, shifting control over future work to outsiders -- a foundation, the Ad Council -- that aren't anti-business but whose motivations are less open to question by a skeptical public would add greatly to its credibility.
  
  
• 12/22/98 MD: Teens can easily buy cigarettes, survey shows The Baltimore Sun
  
  People ages 15 to 17, sent out under the watch of the state comptroller's office, tried to buy cigarettes at 830 outlets and were successful 35 percent of the time. That is down from 36 percent last year and is a substantial drop from the first survey in 1996, when 54 percent of outlets were willing to sell to minors.
  
  
• 12/19/98 CANADA: Industry targets teens Vancouver Sun
  
  Bonnie Leadbeater, a developmental psychologist at the University of Victoria has studied why children smoke. She says the cigarette advertisers are expert at targeting an adolescent's need to be grown up, to be independent of parents, to be rebellious. One of Leadbeater's colleagues refers to teen smokers as "adultoids," she says. "They like to appear adult-like." . . . All of this -- the use of stars like racing car driver Jacques Villeneuve for Rothmans, the funding of community events, the placement of ads -- creates a comfort level for the decision by kids to smoke, he argues. "It suggests that significant organizations are comfortable with the tobacco products and the risks they entail."
  
  
• 12/21/98 FL: Florida's anti-tobacco ads have teen-agers thinking Sun-Sentinel
  
  Some 41.9 percent of 1,800 teens surveyed by telephone in September "strongly agree" tobacco companies try to get young people to smoke "because older people quit smoking or die," compared to 28.7 percent who thought the same in April. Another 29.6 percent strongly agreed that "anti-tobacco ads have a big influence on people your age," compared to 12 percent in April. Some 90 percent of teens surveyed are familiar with the anti-tobacco campaign "Truth." "We're breaking through the clutter," said Peter Mitchell
• 12/20/98 FL: Florida uses MTV-style ads to curb teen-age smoking The Baltimore Sun
  
  Florida's $25 million-a-year ad campaign targeting teens and attacking smoking had struck again. The commercials, with an MTV edge wrapped around some very dark humor, are so slick they're hard to recognize as public service ads. The thousand attendees at the fourth annual National Conference on Tobacco and Health in St. Paul loved it. . . "Somebody told me that [when they saw it]in a theater, they started clapping," said Peter Mitchell, marketing director of the Florida Tobacco Pilot Program, the anti-smoking measure hammered out of the state's $12.7 billion tobacco settlement. "They say `I thought it was a movie.' "
  
  
• 12/24/98 RICHART HARSHAM: Use Ohio's tobacco settlement to help teens stop smoking Cincinnati (OH) Post
  
  Richart Harsham Now that the landmark settlement with the tobacco industry is a done deal - those financial incentives could prove all the more sweet. And it wouldn't require any additional fine-tuning of the Portman bill if nicotine were added to the list of illicit substances teens under 18 were tested for when they sought their driver's licenses. There's no rite of passage quite like the day when a teenager sees his or her name on a freshly minted driver's license.
  
  
• 12/28/98 IL: No Reservations About Healthy Idea Chicago Tribune
  
  "We realized these kids could come into a restaurant, request a smoking table and then find that nobody questioned them," MANN said. The realization gave rise to a program Mann calls Project PACT (short for PUBLIC AWARENESS CAMPAIGN TOGETHER). Sponsored by the local chapter of the TOGETHER WE CAN COUNCIL, a national organization that promotes healthy lifestyles through schools and park districts, Mann began enlisting area restaurant managers to prevent minors from smoking in their establishments.
  
  
• 12/26/98 MT: Anti-smoking class is no cake-walk for CASPER high-schoolers AP/Billings (MT) Gazette
  
  Roosevelt High School is offering an anti-smoking class to students who want to kick the habit. It encourages them to quit by providing information about the hazards of tobacco. "It's not a narc group, and it's not a treatment group either. We know we're not going to cure you in three hours," Zimmer said. Students caught with tobacco for the first time are allowed to take the class instead of being suspended from school. But candy canes are about the only enjoyment the twice-monthly class offers students.
  
  
• 12/29/98 NJ: Borough May Ban Smoking By Teens The Bergen (NJ) Record
  
  Teenage smokers, beware. The Carlstadt Borough Council is about to outlaw smoking in public by anyone under 18. The ordinance, expected to be approved Friday, is geared toward making juveniles aware of the dangers of smoking, which can lead to cancer and lung disease, among other maladies. . . "It's an educational program," said Capt. Herb Scheidewig, who oversees the borough's DARE program. "It's not that we want to arrest our kids. Definitely not. My guys are not going to ride around looking for teenagers smoking." Drafted by the Health Department, the anti-smoking ordinance is patterned after one in effect in East Rutherford.
  
  
• 12/29/98 NM: Ordinance aimed at stopping teenage smoking MSNBC
  
  A new city ordinance beginning Monday makes it harder for minors to get a hold of tobacco products. The ordinance, sponsored by Councilor Sam Bregman, requires stores to keep tobacco behind a counter and is aimed at reducing teenage smoking. The ordinance was passed in October
  
  
• 01/02/99 KY: Five expelled in tobacco crackdown Lexington Herald-Leader
  
  A new tobacco policy at Bullitt Central High School has drawn fire from people who want the school board to reconsider expelling students who violate it. ``I just feel that they need to stay in school and not be expelled for it,'' said Laura Swann, whose son, Harley, 15, was expelled after violating the no-tobacco policy three times. Swann has presented a petition bearing more than 60 signatures asking the board to re-evaluate the policy it approved in June.
  
  
• 12/29/98 NC: The smoking war Raleigh News & Observer
  
  Various factors -- rebellion, stress, peer pressure -- contribute to teen smoking. Kyle, a Durham resident, has heard the deadly statistics. In his Tommy Hilfiger green shirt and bluejeans, the lanky young man says he took up the habit four years ago for two reasons: It was the cool thing to do and his parents told him not to. Of the first reason he says, "All the popular people in school were doing it -- the athletes, the cheerleaders." But, Kyle says, the second reason was more compelling. "My parents spoke out against it. So, I decided I'm going to do the opposite to piss them off."
• 12/29/98NC: Teen smoking in North Carolina Raleigh News & Observer
  
  
• 01/02/99 Mindworks: Children's essays on lying Minneapolis Star Tribune
  
  A couple of months ago, my dad suspected that my brother smoked. So my dad asked him and my brother told him the truth that, yes, he smoked. He got grounded for telling the truth, which I think is dumb. If our parents want us to tell them the truth, we shouldn't get in trouble for it. Because of that experience, I have learned that my parents can't always handle the truth, so I'm not always very honest with them.
  
  
• 01/06/99 ND: SCHAFER Urges Tougher Tobacco Stance Reuters
  
  Governor Ed Schafer is asking lawmakers to increase the legal age to use tobacco to 19. . . In his State of the State address yesterday, Schafer called on lawmakers to join him in getting tough on teen tobacco use in the state.
  
  
• 01/06/99 AZ: MESA: Teens take anti-smoking message all the way to the top The Arizona Republic
  
  Ashley Countryman and Roxanne Brown are young advocates doing their part to singe Big Tobacco. . . On Nov. 16, after a presentation Ashley and Roxanne made, the council voted to require tobacco displays to be out of reach of youth and for clerks to hand the products to adult customers. In tobacco-only stores, minors won't be allowed inside. The action puts Mesa on the same legal page with Gilbert and Tucson. The girls knew their stuff, said John Giles, a Mesa council member who proposed the ordinance.
  
  
• 01/04/99 CANADA: BC: Tobacco laws protecting youth take effect Toronto Sun
  
  Smoking got more complicated in British Columbia on Monday. Retailers caught selling tobacco to young people or bar owners allowing patrons to smoke in Victoria now face tougher laws and increased fines and suspensions.
  
  
• 01/04/99 NORTH DAKOTA: State News USA Today
  
  The state Health Dept. wants to raise the legal smoking age in North Dakota to 19 from 18. Around 18% of high school seniors in the state reach that age before graduating, a survey shows. Raising the age to 19 would make it illegal for virtually all high school students to smoke. [This graph only]
  
  
• 01/04/99 PA: Survey sheds light on area teen drug use MSNBC
  
  Researchers surveyed 170 students for the drugs, alcohol and tobacco use survey by Gordon Black Corporation in New York. The results show alcohol use among Wyoming Area tenth graders is 14 percent higher than the national average and 10 percent higher for cigarettes. . . The survey also reports that 95 percent of the students never used in school. McDonald attributed that to the school's zero tolerance policy and said the problem lies outside school. "The same consequences the school enforces and pursues are not being matched outside in the community," she said.
  
  
• 01/04/99 MS: Stores caught in illegal tobacco, alcohol sales Biloxi Sun Herald
  
  Pascagoula police have cited 15 businesses for selling either tobacco products or alcohol to minors after an end of the year sting operation. Officers checked 40 stores on Dec. 29 for sales of tobacco products to minors . . . Of the 40 stores checked for tobacco sales, 12 were in violation, officers said.
  
  
• 01/04/99 MO: Ball's tests new concept to help control tobacco sales The Business Journal
  
  One local grocery chain has decided to handle this situation by selling tobacco products at designated counters with specially trained clerks. Store officials hope that by separating tobacco from the general merchandise, sales will be easier to monitor. "One of the things that is forgotten in all of this is that (tobacco) is a legal product," said Thad Lawrence, executive director of customer service and leadership training for Ball's Food Stores. "We understand that the separate checkouts are a pain for our adult customers who are trying to make their tobacco purchases."
  
  
• 01/02/99 CA: Extensive Survey to Aid Public, Private Health Planning Los Angeles Times
  
  Called the ORANGE COUNTY HEALTH NEEDS ASSESSMENT, the report will describe the health habits of residents . . "One of the most interesting groups involved adolescents," AUSTIN said. Among the things researchers learned was that most teens feel that health care professionals "are not paying enough attention to teenage abuse of cigarettes and alcohol because the focus is so much on illegal drugs," she said.
  
  
• 01/07/99 BONNIE ERBEAN and JOSETTE SHINER: Should police target teen smokers? Deseret News
  
  Radio talk show host Dennis Prager recently wrote: "If smoking cigarettes is the most dangerous activity or worst vice my children every engage in, I will rejoice." That is not an argument for teen smoking, but it is an argument for some perspective and common sense. Let's reserve our police and moral resources and preserve what is left of common sense.
  
  
• 01/07/99 IA: MILLER Suggests Next Steps To Cut Teen Use of Tobacco Icon
  
  Attorney General Tom Miller is asking the next session of the Legislature to ban tobacco advertising near schools, ban free cigarette samples and coupons, fund local programs for tobacco control, and establish a statewide registry of tobacco retail-sales permits to help reduce sales of tobacco to children. "The action returns to the state and local levels in our mission to keep kids from becoming addicted to tobacco," Miller said at a news conference in Ankeny, a city Miller commended for taking numerous steps to reduce teen smoking.
  
  
• 01/09/99 MI: Teen smoking targeted for crackdown Flint Journal
  
  This year, the Genesee County Health Department is planning more compliance checks of stores selling tobacco, looking for those that might be selling to minors, said Dawn Scharer, of the tobacco enforcement unit of the health department. The crackdown is part of an FDA enforcement program scheduled to start this year. In it, officials in seven counties in mid-Michigan, including Genesee, will work with the FDA to make the compliance checks.
  
  
• 01/08/99 CA: Lighting Up for the Next Generation Los Angeles Times
  
  Maybe Joe Camel was not the pied piper after all--the one who started young people down the path to nicotine addiction. Young people ages 16 to 24 interviewed in the Los Angeles area say it was often someone in their family who led them down that road, usually a relative they wanted to emulate, or a friend. Ramon Vega, 20, said an older cousin gave him his first cigarette. . . "I spend about $120 a month on cigarettes. It's a filthy habit." Price increases are effective in reducing teenage smoking, said Jonathan E. Fielding, Los Angeles County director of public health.
• 01/08/99 Smoking Among Youths Continues to Rise Los Angeles Times
  
  "I hated smokers and smoking until I was 18," said Joe L'Hote, 22, of Newport Beach. "I didn't like anything about it. But one day I was stressed, smoked a cigarette with friends, and I've been smoking ever since." . . Nationally, the number of adolescents who become daily smokers before the age of 18 increased by 73% between 1988, the year of Joe Camel's debut, and 1996, according to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Each day, 3,000 youths under 18 become daily smokers, the CDC said. Meanwhile, the smoking rate for people 18 and over has fallen from 42% in 1965 to 25% in 1995, the CDC reported.
  
  
• 01/08/99 FL: Teens find stores market tobacco in ways known to lure teens Tampa Tribune
  
  In many of the 250 retail stores surveyed by Students Working Against Tobacco, the students found tobacco ads at a 3-foot level, which makes them more visible to children, spokesman Carlea Bauman said Thursday. The group, known as SWAT, wants retailers to keep tobacco products behind the counter and raise the height of tobacco displays or ads so children can't see them so readily.
  
  
• 1/10/99 LETTERS: Taken To Task On Teen Smoking Image LA Times
  
  Shame on photographer Stephanie Diani for putting a cigarette in the hand of the girl posed as one of the "Mod squad" in your front-page story (Dec. 11). What have you accomplished by featuring a young girl smoking in a "kewl" setting? Do you want to entice girls to become addicted . . . Or was there something uglier involved? . . . Are you trying to bring back the foolish notion that smoking is glamorous? Have you not read any articles on the hazards of smoking and of second-hand smoke? . . . Do you have a brain?
  
  
• 01/12/99 UT: GARFIELD: State of the State Salt Lake Tribune
  
   Students at Panguitch Middle School who abstain from tobacco products will be paid tokens redeemable at the end of the school year.    The Southwest Utah Public Health Department will run the program with a $3,500 grant
  
  
• 01/10/99 ND: Bill's goals: Tobacco out of schools Bismarck Tribune
  
  Supporters of a bill that would raise the legal smoking age from 18 to 19 are looking to accomplish one main goal: Make it even more difficult for students to have tobacco products. . . Senate Bill 2125 would also make illegal tobacco sales to minors and illegal possession and use of tobacco by minors an infraction, which could carry a maximum penalty of $500. When Gov. Ed Schafer spoke of the idea in his State of the State speech last week, he said the penalty should be reduced "from a rarely prosecuted misdemeanor to a more appropriate infraction that police are more willing to enforce."
  
  
• 01/12/99 Helping Other People Quit Smoking New York Times
  
  Would you like to help blow away the secondhand smoke that contributes to these problems? Here are five ideas to try. They come from a Web magazine, "SGR4Kids." SGR stands for Surgeon General's Report. The magazine, which is on the Web site of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), is at http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/osh/sgr4kids/sgrmenu.htm 1. Write a letter to your favorite restaurant, asking them to go completely smoke-free. . . As part of its effort to change those figures, the CDC holds an annual youth media contest for kids in middle school and high school. Awards are given for the best communication of tobacco and health information in news stories, posters and a variety of other media.
  
  
• 01/11/99 Stop Your Kid From Smoking CBS
  
  Dr. Izenberg advises parents to begin reinforcing the anti-smoking message very early: Explain to your children how tobacco advertising manipulates people into thinking smoking is cool, socially acceptable, and image enhancing. . . Build a child's self-esteem and appeal to his or her natural desire for independence by emphasizing the ability to rise above the influence of peers and think for himself or herself. Tell them about the negative effects that would matter to them - smelly breath, yellow teeth, reduced athletic abilities.
  
  
• 01/11/99 IN: Tobacco retailes targeted Indianapolis Star-News
  
  More than one in four Indiana retailers that sell cigarettes and tobacco products are willing to sell them to minors, according to a newly released state study. . . The high failure rate could cost the state dearly. If a similar sweep this year turns up a failure rate of more than 20 percent, the federal government might cut money for substance abuse and treatment in Indiana by $13 million, said Louise Polansky, the division's assistant deputy director for governmental relations.
  
  
• 01/13/99 EDITORIAL: Buying Cigarettes Evansville Courier
  
  Monahan suggests that the state spend some of its share of the $4 billion tobacco settlement on hiring more excise police ‹ it now has only 54, who spend a lot of time focusing on alcohol. That seems a logical use for some of the money. But the immediate need is for retailers to tighten up. If the state doesn¹t get the number of illegal sales down ‹ below 20 percent this year ‹ it stands to lose $13 million in federal money for substance-abuse treatment. What an absurd threat. We agree that the retailers must do their job, but to dangle the loss of funds earmarked for treatment of people hooked on drugs and alcohol challenges the sensibilities.
  
  
• 01/14/99 CA: MARTINEZ: Teenage Tobacco Foes Help Enforce Law San Francisco Chronicle
  
  Members of TIGHT -- which stands for Tobacco Industry Gets Hammered by Teens -- are starting to make the rounds to stores that sell tobacco products this week to educate merchants about the new county law.
  
  
• 01/13/99 FL: FUNding OK'd for program Florida Times-Union
  
  The Florida Comptroller's Office has reversed an October advisory that restricted how the state's Pilot Program for Tobacco Contool - including its Clay County coordinators - could spend $200 million in funding. That means the fun that had been taken out of the program, which is designed to help youth live tobacco free, is back in. ''Basically, everything is bacry group that helped her plan anti-tobacco-themed events for youth.
  
  
• 01/13/99 IN: Governor proposes curbs on tobacco Evansville Courier
  
  Gov. FRANK O¹BANNON called for curbs on tobacco vending machines Tuesday after a study by the Indiana Division of Mental Health showed that 27 percent of Hoosier retailers violated federal laws banning the sale of tobacco to minors. O¹Bannon¹s announcement came during his State of the State address, a 30-minute speech that centered on early childhood and education proposals for this session. Rep. Brian Hasler, D-Evansville, who is sponsoring vending machine legislation this year, said an endorsement from the governor is ³gratifying.²
  
  
• 01/13/99 AZ: Anti-tobacco ads are aimed at youthful riders Arizona Daily Star
  
  Twenty-three school buses in the Flowing Wells Unified School District are carrying the message that smoking and tobacco are harmful - even deadly. But will teens heed, or even read, the moving mini-billboards?
  
  
• 01/17/99 ID: The zero option: Want your kids to shun tobacco? Don't get them started Twin Falls Times-News
  
  The MAGIC VALLEY TOBACCO FREE ALLIANCE has been working on the issue for four years. "We started out to try to do something about tobacco and we said `Why don't we get the young people involved,'" said Dr. David McClusky, who is a Twin Falls surgeon and recent chairman of the Tobacco Policy Subcommittee of the American Cancer Society and past president of its Idaho and Rocky Mountain divisions. "So now, it's their program." "It's youth who are interested in preventing tobacco use among the general public and students," Gerberding said.
  
  
• 01/16/99 FL: School notebook Florida Times-Union
  
  Art teacher Carolynn Fooshee was awarded a $5,000 Artful Truth - Healthy Propaganda Arts Project grant. The project was developed by the Wolfsonian-Florida International University as part of the Florida Tobacco Pilot Program to help students understand the power of art, design and advertising as persuasion tools. Fooshee's proposal focused on the creation of visual arts projects by students in fourth through sixth grades to convey persuasive messages about tobacco use.
  
  
• 01/18/99 NY: New York Metro NewsMinute MSNBC
  
  Nine PUTNAM COUNTY stores have been fined for selling tobacco to minors. Putnam heath officials said the businesses were caught during a canvas of 100 stores.
  
  
• 01/18/99 KOREA: Smoking, drinking rising sharply among adolescents Korea Herald
  
  According to the Seoul Board of Education, a total of 11,254 middle and high school students were disciplined for smoking or drinking last year, a 71 percent increase over 6,579 in 1997. The number more than doubled in one year among high school students from 3,371 in 1997 to 7,325 in 1998. . . In a related study, another government agency discovered that students tend to start smoking at an earlier age than in the past. The Commission on Youth Protection under the Prime Minister's Office said in its recent report on smoking and narcotics that those in middle school started smoking at the age of 12.9 on average, while those in high school started at the age of 15.
  
  
• 01/18/99 WI: New plan to fight drug abuse takes root in SHOREWOOD Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
  
  Six months after the Shorewood School Board dropped the anti-drug program known as DARE, the community appears invigorated and confident that it is on track in curbing alcohol, tobacco and drug use among students. . . "A committee of educators, community leaders and parents studied a variety of drug education programs including DARE before settling on Life Styles, a program that emphasizes all the possible choices and consequences rather than just the legal ramifications of using. The DARE program might be worse than having no program at all, the committee concluded after examining a number of studies.
  
  
• 01/18/99 IL: ORLAND prepares store sting Daily Southtown
  
  The Orland Park Police Department is giving local stores and restaurants fair warning before beginning an operation through its alcohol and tobacco interdiction program. Starting this week and lasting into February, the department will be sending minors into establishments that sell tobacco products and alcohol to make sure clerks and waitresses ask for proof of age.
  
  
• 01/22/99 CA: LA HABRA Los Angeles Times
  
  The YMCA Communities in Prevention-North organization is seeking members for the "Don't Provide" Tobacco Task Force. Applicants need only be La Habra residents who are concerned about youth smoking or other neighborhood tobacco issues and want to get involved.
  
  
• 01/22/99 Partnership Trains Youth To Be Anti-smoking Advocates (PAY-PER-VIEW) NewsEdge
  
  Using teens as frontline soldiers in the war against smoking is one of the most effective ways to deflate tobacco's "cool" image among youth. This "kids helping kids" approach is the crux of the American Lung Association's TATU program (Teens Against Tobacco Use) and a driving factor in it recently gaining national managed care momentum. Last April, Humana pledged $2 million and 50,000 employee volunteer hours - TATU's largest source of corporate volunteer support. . . Overall the TATU program, which is part of the ALA's national umbrella " Smoke-Free Class of 2000" initiative, has recruited 4,000 adult trainers and 30,000 teen trainers, reaching as many as 300,000 elementary school kids.
  
  
• 01/20/99 MN: One-third of young adults smoking in HENNEPIN County Minneapolis Star Tribune
  
  Thirty-seven percent of those aged 18 to 24 say they smoke, according to a new report from the Minneapolis and county health departments. And that's far higher than the last-known rates for the state (30 percent) and the nation (28). But there's some question about whether the new numbers really mean smoking rates are higher in Hennepin County or simply reflect the first signs of a growing nationwide trend.
  
  
• 01/23/99 IL: QUINCEY: HARLEM ALL-STARS are in town MSNBC
  
  The Harlem All-Stars will play an exhibition basketball game Saturday night. Friday they took time to visit half a dozen Quincy schools to entertain and remind kids to stay away from dugs, alcohol and tobacco.
  
  
• 01/23/99 MT: DEER LODGE: ACLU questions aspects of drug search in schools Billings (MT) Gazette
  
  Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union said some aspects of Thursday's search violated Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. . . Of those, three cars were found to have small amounts of marijuana and another had tobacco. Out of 350 students, three were charged with drug possession and a fourth was cited for being under 18 and having cigarettes. . . Crichton asked for students who were affected by the searches to call the ACLU and possibly help them establish a court case against dog-sniffing policies.
  
  
• 01/22/99 MS: GAUTIER OKs new tobacco possession law Biloxi Sun Herald
  
  The Gautier City Council has joined officials in a number of other municipalities in adopting an ordinance aimed at getting tobacco away from young people. While there is a federal law prohibiting the sale of tobacco to minors, city attorney Bob Ramsay told council members that there was no law preventing the possession of tobacco by minors. The ordinance approved this week will not go into effect for 30 days.
  
  
• 01/22/99 CA: Bracing to fight teen smoking Contra Costa Times
  
  Anti-tobacco advocates, buoyed by new county laws aimed at curbing teen-agers' access to tobacco products, have quickly launched their next attack -- selling all 19 Contra Costa cities and towns on similar laws by year's end. County public health officials have asked Contra Costa's mayors to spearhead a push in their cities for laws like the ones passed by county supervisors late last year for unincorporated areas. Youth groups, which campaigned in force for the county controls, have begun lobbying city councils.
  
  
• 01/25/99 GOLDBERG: Is PM Blowing Smoke In Anti-tobacco Ads? Looking Behind Philip Morris' $100m Campaign, Ad Agency CEO Sees Hypocrisy ($$) NewsEdge
  
  "If you want kids to start smoking, the most effective way is to tell kids they shouldn't smoke," stated Bill Godshall of the public health group Smoke- free Pennsylvania. "It only makes kids curious." . . The subject of teen smoking prevention would have been treated far differently; the work would have been far more relevant and persuasive, and Philip Morris might have been seen as maybe a bit more objective in its motives. Instead, we have this campaign from an agency that has enriched itself over the years by creating advertising that entices teens and others to smoke.
  
  
• 01/23/99 CA: ROSES AND THORNS: Good efforts to fight youth smoking Contra Costa Times
  
  A ROSE TO TIGHT, or Tobacco Industry Gets Hammered by Teens, for its efforts to curb tobacco advertising aimed at youths. The group is composed of teens and other young people, and it successfully lobbied Contra Costa County supervisors to approve a law to reduce tobacco sales to minors.
  
  
• 01/27/99 OR: Data give bad news on teen substance abuse The Oregonian
  
  "A substantial number of young people are experimenting, and what we hear is it isn't just the fringe kids. It's the athletes. It's the good students. It's everybody," said Barbara Cimaglio, director of the state Office of Alcohol and Drug Programs, which contracted with a firm called Northwest Professional Consortium to do the survey, released Tuesday. . . Close to half (43 percent) of 11th-graders said they drank, nearly one in three smoked, and nearly one in four used an illicit drug in the month prior to the survey. Eighth-graders didn't do a whole lot better. One in four drank, one in five smoked, and nearly one in five used an illicit drug.
  
  
• 01/26/99 FL: Teen Cigar Smoking Is On Rise Sun-Sentinel
  
  One in five high schoolers and one in seven middle schoolers reported smoking at least one cigar in a month, said a state report released on Monday. Although fewer teens smoke stogies than cigarettes, cigars may attract youths who otherwise would not be tempted by tobacco, anti-smoking advocates said. "Young people see cigar bars and cigar magazines and a lot of celebrities smoking cigars, and they're getting the message that cigars are a good thing," said Cindy Vallo, who chairs the Tobacco-Free Florida Community Partnership of Palm Beach County. . . The results came from the first Florida Youth Tobacco Survey, which polled 23,000 students at 255 high and middle schools last February.
  
  
• 01/27/99 ROB REINER to Serve as Chairman of TFK 1999 Youth Advocatesof the Year Awards Celebration U.S. Newswire
  
  Actor/director Rob Reiner will serve as chairman of the CAMPAIGN FOR TOBACCO FREE-KIDS' 1999 Youth Advocates of the Year Awards gala on April 29. This annual event recognizes outstanding young tobacco control activists who have distinguished themselves as leaders among thousands of kids working to protect their peers, communities, and the nation from tobacco addiction.
  
  
• 01/31/99 UT: Utah Alliance Plans Attack On Tobacco Salt Lake Tribune
  
  "What we're trying to do is undo 50 years of tobacco advertisements that say it's cool, macho, healthy, sexy and rebellious to smoke," said Colleen Stevens of the California tobacco education campaign. . . The newly formed Utah Tobacco Prevention & Healthcare Alliance is looking at California, Florida and other states to formulate a multitiered, statewide tobacco prevention and cessation program targeting youth. The alliance includes more than 70 public and private health and tobacco-use prevention organizations, including Coalition for Tobacco-Free Utah.
  
  
• 01/30/99 MI: Michigan teen smoking law is over 100 years old MSNBC
  
  Clerks in Marquette County are used to asking young people for I.D. when they buy cigarettes. That's because stores know the County Health Department occasionally runs sting operations. . . Because of their success, the Food and Drug Administration has asked the Marquette County Health Department to help run compliance checks throughout the U.P. With Federal dollars, the number of checks per year will more than double, going from 40 a year in Marquette County to 100 a year
  
  
• 01/30/99 CA: Mountain View's Tobacco War Gets Boost From Teens San Francisco Chronicle
  
  In Mountain View, seventh- and eight-grade volunteers from Crittenden Middle School who serve as decoys go into liquor and retail stores, markets and service stations attempting to buy cigarettes. An officer in plain clothes watches as the student asks the unsuspecting cashiers for a selected brand. If a sale is made, the undercover officer reveals her identity and a uniformed officer enters the business. The violators are then issued a citation with a date to appear in court. Those who refuse to make a sale are sent a letter from the department commending them for helping keep young people tobacco-free.
  
  
• 01/29/99 IA: Eight caught in SIOUX CITY tobacco sting MSNBC
  
  Eight Sioux City businesses are facing fines after tobacco spot checks this week. Overall 45 businesses were checked for selling to minors, eight were cited. . . for selling tobacco to an underage person.
  
  
• 01/29/99 GA: Peers aid tobacco lessons Augusta Chronicle
  
  The students are working with the American Lung Association of Georgia to educate fifth-graders on the dangers of smoking and how tobacco advertising might influence people. The peer-education program -- called Home Town Heroes -- targets fifth-graders because they are approaching a time in their lives when peer pressure might play more of a role in the choices they make. . . And Jennifer and Chris said they know how difficult it can be to fight peer pressure to smoke cigarettes, especially at the middle school and high school level. "Well, hopefully, they look up to us, being older," Chris said.
  
  
• 01/29/99IL: HICKORY HILLS: Council Strengthens Legislation Against Tobacco Use By Minors Chicago Tribune
  
  The Hickory Hills City Council on Thursday night unanimously approved an ordinance prohibiting the sale of tobacco products to people younger than 18. The ordinance also prohibits children under 18 from possessing tobacco and requires the use of locking devices on tobacco vending machines to prevent their operation by minors.
  
  
• 01/29/99 PA: Sixth grader urges tougher legislation for smoking peers Philadelphia Inquirer
  
  JEFF HANLEY says his locker has been broken into. He has had chewing gum smeared all over his books and has been made fun of on the school bus. He says he has even gotten death threats. But the sixth grader at Lionville Middle School in the Downingtown district has more important things on his mind -- pushing for national legislation that would make smoking by youths under 18 illegal. . . SCHRODER said he told Hanley about the two similar bills, which were brought forward by legislators but got nowhere because antitobacco groups, including the American Cancer Society and American Lung Association, believe tobacco companies should be held accountable, not the smokers.
  
  
• 01/29/99 ID: Law to keep tobacco from minors means changes for all buyers Twin Falls Times-News
  
  No matter what the excuse is, smokers who look younger than 27 and don't have identification will have a tougher time buying tobacco. The reason: A revised state law that took effect Jan. 1 can cost a store thousands of dollars in fines and lost revenue if it sells tobacco to a minor. About 90 Magic Valley tobacco sellers learned the consequences of selling to minors, and how to avoid them, at a Wednesday seminar by the Coalition for Responsible Tobacco Retailers. The coalition sponsors the "We Card" program
  
  
• 01/28/99 IA: Smoke alarm / Doctor, teen tell children about dangers of tobacco Cedar Rapids (IA) Gazette
  
  Coolidge Elementary School fifth grader Nate Hall says he has decided never to start smoking. A classroom visit from Dr. Donald Marquardt and Washington High School sophomore Megan Hart helped in his decision. Marquardt and Hart are among several Cedar Rapids family practice physicians and high school students teaming up to present Tar Wars, a tobacco-free education program, to fifth graders in the area.
  
  
• 01/28/99 CA: Teens tell fourth-graders smoking isn't cool Los Angeles Times
  
  Called Teens Against Tobacco Use, the student group performs anti-smoking skits and puppet shows at local elementary and high schools. Members Tiffany Barrett, Nicole Jorgensen and Jackie McMurtie recently visited Robinson Elementary School, where fourth-grade students had a chance to practice saying "no" to cigarettes and to learn the hard facts about the harmful effects of smoking.

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• ©1996 Gene Borio, Tobacco BBS (212-982-4645). WebPage: http://www.tobacco.org).Original Tobacco BBS material may be reprinted in any non-commercial venue if accompanied by this credit

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