STATES SOFT-PEDAL EFFORTS TO PROTECT TEENS

With billions of dollars at stake and headlines beckoning last fall,
states lined up to proclaim themselves toughest on tobacco, and to
grab a share of a $206-billion settlement with the tobacco industry.

But when it comes to stopping cigarette sales to teens, many states
have shown far less exuberance.

Almost all states continue to allow cigarette sales through vending
machines, an easy buy for teens. In 21 states, storeowners face
neither fines nor loss of their cigarette licenses for selling tobacco
to minors.

And Minnesota and Iowa, two states that crowed the loudest when
fighting the tobacco industry in court, have actually moved backward:
More merchants sold cigarettes to minors this year than last, state
studies show.

Such easy access to cigarettes by those most vulnerable to their
allure does nothing for a nation dedicated to cutting its smoking
rate. Research shows that the vast majority of people who smoke
started by age 18. And about 20% of high school seniors now smoke regularly.

Reducing teens' access to tobacco is an important key to assaulting
this addiction. At least that was Congress' thinking in 1992 when it
passed a law with tough financial penalties for states that failed to
reduce tobacco sales to minors by prescribed margins. Now states must
do surprise inspections of stores, and by this year, most must show
that at least 70% of merchants refuse sales to teens.

But seven states and the District of Columbia have fallen so far short
of the program's goals that they now are facing federal penalties of
nearly $37 million. Seven more states have missed their targets by
smaller margins.

What went wrong?

The law does have flaws. Most obvious is the financial penalty, which
cuts a state's drug-abuse treatment funds. That's so at odds with the
war on drugs that the Clinton administration has been loath to use
it.

Still, states shoulder most of the blame for the lagging progress. In
Maryland, where the state gave local police the power to ticket
violators, smoking foes recently found only five of the state's 24
jurisdictions actively enforcing the law.

In Delaware, law enforcement agents can issue citations to merchants
caught selling to minors, but they weren't doing federal inspections.
Those were done by the state's health agency, which had no authority
to punish violators. Only recently did the two team up.

The states offer many excuses for their problem-riddled programs: weak
penalties imposed by legislatures, haphazard local enforcement, and
judges who give violations low priority and fail to impose fines.

But some states are proving it can be done right. Louisiana, which
started with the nation's highest underage sales rate, now reports
that only 20% of stores still sell to minors. The state credits its
$400,000-a-year budget, the work of local volunteers and enforcement
by the agency that oversees liquor laws.

And Massachusetts has shown what a campaign of price hikes, edgy
anti-smoking ads and limiting sales can do. Smoking among its youth,
age 12 to 17, has dropped 15% since 1993.

Precisely what will stop teens from smoking remains a mystery, even to
experts. But it's no mystery that denying them the chance to buy
cigarettes certainly will help.