CIGARETTE PROCEDURES GALL OFFICIALS

At Issue Are "Sting" Techniques. Aid For Drug Programs Could Be Lost.

Officials in Delaware and Schuylkill Counties are up in arms over federal
regulations that could cost Pennsylvania $26 million in antidrug funding if
it misses an August deadline to cut down on cigarette sales to minors. Two
issues gall the officials, they say. First, their human services
departments, which provide drug treatment and prevention programs, could be
penalized for what they consider a law-enforcement-agency failure. Second,
the state Department of Health has asked counties to use teenagers to try to
buy cigarettes in "sting" operations, an enforcement tool that the two
counties are refusing to use.

"What's next? Do we get teenagers to tell us what their parents are doing
and pay them?" Wallace A. Nunn, Delaware County Council vice president,
asked yesterday. "I would no more support this than I would put adolescents
in bars to try and buy alcohol," said Debra L. Moroz, executive director of
the Schuylkill County Drug and Alcohol Executive Commission. Gene Boyle,
director of the Bureau of Drug and Alcohol Programs in the state Department
of Health, said this was the first time he had heard such concerns.

"I'm sure some people would feel that way, but there's no legal problem with
it," he said, adding that using teenagers undercover was the only realistic
way to check for compliance with cigarette-sales law. Under a 1997 federal
law, it is illegal to sell cigarettes to anyone under 18. The law requires
states to increase compliance, as measured in surprise checks of cigarette
vendors, or face the loss of federal dollars. In 1996, 55.6 percent of
Pennsylvania vendors sold to minors in preliminary checks conducted by the
state. That number was down to 31 percent in 1998 but inched up to 43
percent in February. The state is supposed to cut noncompliance to 25
percent by the end of August, Boyle said. If Pennsylvania misses the
deadline, it could lose 40 percent of its federal block-grant money for drug
treatment and prevention. That would be about $26 million for the state,
$800,000 for Delaware County and $300,000 for Schuylkill County. Mark Weber,
director of communications for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,
said his agency was carrying out the will of Congress. However, he said, the
agency has yet to cut off a state's funding for missing a deadline. If a
state is making a good-faith effort, the agency can be lenient, he said. He
also said states could choose to use youths who look under 18 rather than
teenagers. Under the plan recommended by Pennsylvania officials, counties
use two types of sting operations. The first is educational, in which a teen
volunteer tries to buy cigarettes as an adult waits outside. If the clerk is
about to hand them over, the teenager stops the sale and provides
educational materials about the law. In the second phase -- the one that
raised local hackles -- the teenagers would be paid $6 an hour. They would
carry out the sale, and the store later would receive a warning from the
Food and Drug Administration. The adults may be police or sheriff's
deputies, Boyle said.

Delaware and Schuylkill County officials said law enforcement would probably
not be available, forcing the job onto human-services employees who are not
comfortable with an enforcement role.