POLICE CRACK DOWN ON MINORS' TOBACCO USE

Longview Police are cracking down on minors using tobacco by stepping up
enforcement. After jurors ordered five tobacco companies in July to pay $145
billion in the most expensive lawsuit against big tobacco, money has been
flowing into states around the country to fund tobacco enforcement.

The Longview Police Department will receive $29,000 from the Texas Tobacco
Settlement Pilot Project over a two-year period to increase circulation of
anti-tobacco literature, to conduct compliance inspections at stores and to
organize tobacco sting operations.

Officer Clay Whittenberg said that though some Longview officers consider
nicotine a drug, their job is to uphold the law. Because of Senate Bill 55,
which regulates the sale of tobacco to minors, police conduct compliance
inspections at gas stations and convenience stores to ensure that clerks are
obeying the law.

"With this grant, we can conduct two compliance inspections and two stings a
year," Whittenberg said. "For instance, we'll go into a store to make sure
tobacco products are behind the counter. It used to be that tobacco products
were in the aisles, so anyone could pick them up."

After a month, police will follow up their inspections with sting
operations, or "controlled buying stings."

"Stores know by now that there is something next after an inspection, but we
may have more surprise stings," Whittenberg said.

A controlled buying sting is where police send a minor into a store and he
or she asks for a pack of smokes from a clerk. Last spring, six police
officers with six minors went to 87 stores in one night. Only five clerks
sold cigarettes to the minors.

"Which is great, but our goal is 100-percent compliance," Whittenberg said.

Police not only ticket clerks who sell to minors, but hand out citations for
minor in possession (MIP) as well. If a person younger than 18 is caught
with tobacco by a police officer, the minor's drivers licence will be
suspended, they will get a $250 ticket, they will need to take tobacco
education classes and they must perform 41 to 55 hours of community service.

Rebecca Parker, an education specialist at the East Texas Council on
Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, said that each month she teaches a court-ordered
class of 15 minors who received MIPs for using tobacco.

"The youngest I've seen is 13," Parker said.

"You ask them why, and they'll tell you everybody's doing it."

According to ETCADA, smoking causes 1,200 premature deaths a day, which is
the same amount as two jumbo jets full of passengers crashing daily. Parker
said East Texas definitely has a problem with retailers, older brothers,
sisters and even parents giving minors tobacco.

"Getting tobacco is not a problem for a minor," she said.

The problem is getting off tobacco. Parker said one Houston retailer
admitted that when she observed a minor swiping a pack of cigarettes she
would look the other way because she knew the kid would get hooked and would
want to buy more when the minor was older.

"Tobacco is more addictive than heroin," Parker said.