TEXAS MAKING IT HARDER FOR KIDS TO LIGHT ONE UP

WASHINGTON -- Texas has slashed the chances that its children can
successfully buy a pack of cigarettes at retailers, making the state one of
the best performing under a 1992 federal anti-tobacco law, according to
federal statistics.

Only five states -- Florida, Georgia, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont --
have outperformed Texas in reducing the rate at which merchants sell
tobacco to minors. The statistics are based on the number of times minors
working for inspectors are successful in buying tobacco at retail outlets.

Texas officials reported those minors were able to purchase cigarettes 56
percent of the time in 1996, but only 13 percent of the time in 1999, the
Department of Health and Human Services reported.

The federal law, known as the Synar Amendment, allows Health and Human
Services to deny 40 percent of federal grant money earmarked for alcohol
and drug abuse programs if states don't reduce sales rates to minors each
year, and reach 20 percent by 2003.

State officials attribute the decline to a set of strict anti-tobacco laws
passed by the Texas Legislature in 1997, although they also say the Synar
Amendment has made at least one agency, the Texas Commission on Alcohol and
Drug Abuse, pay closer attention to tobacco-related issues. That is because
nearly $50 million of the commission's $163 million budget is subject to
withdrawal if the state fails to meet tobacco sales targets.

To neglect federal anti-tobacco measures is "just not a gamble that we can
risk," commission spokeswoman Stephanie Goodman said. "Texas could never
afford to make up for 40 percent of the commission's funding."

The 1999 numbers reported to Health and Human Services came from the
commission and were based on 521 inspections.

An independent study released Wednesday, however, concluded that most
states, including Texas, are slow to enforce laws that prohibit tobacco
sales to minors. The study was published in the October issue of The
Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, a journal of the American
Medical Association.

The report concludes that the Synar Amendment has not pushed states to
enforce anti-tobacco laws rigorously enough. So far, the federal government
has rewarded grants to states every year, even though statistics show some
states, such as Missouri and Minnesota, have not been able to reduce
minors' access to tobacco. The end result, the study says, is that states
are less apt to enforce anti-tobacco legislation if they know their funding
is not in jeopardy.

Health and Human Services officials said Wednesday the independent study is
based on data from 1996 and many states, including Texas, have passed a
wealth of anti-tobacco legislation since then, which largely focuses on
children.

Nationally, between 60 percent to 90 percent of teens were able to
successfully purchase tobacco before the Synar law took effect, the Health
and Human Service report said. After one year, the national average had
fallen to 40 percent, and it is expected to be close to 20 percent this
year, said Mark Weber, an HHS spokesman.

The Texas state comptroller spends about $1 million each year working with
local police departments to conduct random stings by sending minors into
retailers to try to buy tobacco. Merchants that sell to minors face up to
$1,000 in fines and, after four offenses, face revocation of permits.

The author of the independent study, Joseph DiFranza, a professor at
University of Massachusetts Medical School, said Texas and other states
have not gone far enough until fewer than 10 percent of merchants sell
tobacco to kids.

"Children still know where to go," DiFranza said.

Despite the rosy HHS statistics Texas minors still get their tobacco. While
state, federal and local agents conducted 12,478 inspections of tobacco
merchants between October 1997 and October 1998, tobacco use among high
school seniors increased to an all time high of 47 percent in 1998,
according to a Texas Department of Health study.

The comptroller office conducted more than 4,000 of those inspections,
which Deputy Comptroller Billy Hamilton said are selective because of
limited funding.

"The way this program works now is we go off tips and target places that we
know kids are willing to go."

For the state to inspect each of the 33,652 merchants in the state would
cost well over $25 million, which is not possible, unless the federal
government contributes more money, Hamilton said.