[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 89 (Tuesday, July 12, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 12, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                            TEENAGE SMOKING

                                 ______


                         HON. RICHARD J. DURBIN

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, July 12, 1994

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to submit for the Record a 
column by Eric Zorn which ran in the Chicago Tribune on July 10, 1994. 
The column, ``Let's Snuff Out Teenage Smoking,'' is right on target.

               [From the Chicago Tribune, July 10, 1994]

                    Let's Snuff Out Teenage Smoking

                             (By Eric Zorn)

       Surveys tell the story: The 400,000-some new tombstones 
     planted each year for those who have died of smoking-related 
     causes are a collective monument to the enduring stupidity of 
     teenagers.
       The kids aren't doing the dying, of course. Tobacco takes 
     years to complete its ugly work. But they are by and large 
     the ones taking those first drags, inhaling their way into a 
     powerful addition (or, if you believe the industry 
     panjandrums, a pleasurable habit that just happens to be 
     terribly hard to break) that takes a huge toll on the 
     individual and society.
       Smoking is an unwise practice, for scads of reasons I need 
     not repeat here. For it to continue among about a quarter of 
     the population as it does, unwise people must join in to 
     replace the quitters and diers in great numbers--people who, 
     say, don't really believe in their own mortality, who can't 
     imagine the idea of deferred disease and whose immature 
     judgment is, in many areas, enshrined into the law.
       In short, teenagers.
       The vast majority of new smokers each year are teens. 
     Figures from the Office on Smoking and Health within the U.S. 
     Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that four out 
     of five adults who now smoke started before they were 18. A 
     recent U.S. surgeon general's report said the average age of 
     first cigarette is 14.5, and of becoming a daily smoker is 
     17.7.
       The same report said it is very rare for people to take up 
     smoking after 30. The unstated reason is obvious: People know 
     better by then. They've read the studies and fear the weed. 
     They've realized that their bodies deteriorate fast enough 
     without deliberate poisoning. They can see the future and 
     want to be in it.
       And though there isn't always a direct correlation between 
     one's wisdom and one's level of formal education, note that 
     only 14 percent of college graduates smoke, compared with 32 
     percent of those who didn't finish high school. The New 
     Republic reported last week that only 7 percent of the 
     Harvard class of '69 smokes.
       By all lights, with its strong associations with youth and 
     lack of wisdom, smoking ought to be viewed as just another 
     one of those dumb things kids do, like throwing toilet paper 
     on trees, playing ding-dong-ditch or driving around in 
     endless circles with the car stereo cranked all the way up. A 
     phase. A rite of passage. Something to grow out of and laugh 
     about later.
       Adults ought to be as embarrassed to ask to sit in 
     restaurant smoking sections as they would be to ask to sit 
     with patrons who are playing drinking games until they vomit 
     or pass out.
       But, of course, it is not that way. Tens of millions of 
     adults keep right on smoking well after they have become 
     wise, deliberative and otherwise cautious, well after they 
     have turned the volume down and started eating high-fiber 
     foods. Such is the power of the nicotine addiction 
     (pleasurable habit).
       Smoking drains our health-care system of $50 billion a 
     year, according to a federal report released Thursday. 
     Additional related social costs nearly double that figure, 
     the report said.
       We can further tax, shun and sequester adult smokers to try 
     to break tobacco's grip. But clearly the only way to make 
     significant long-term progress is to get tougher with teen 
     smokers, an estimated million of whom join the yellowed-
     finger crowd each year.
       ``If we stop adolescents from smoking, the effects will be 
     dramatic,'' promises Michael Ericksen, director of the CDC's 
     Office on Smoking and Health.
       A preliminary version of new federal regulations on tobacco 
     and minors due out in final form this summer suggests that 
     states establish retail licensing programs for tobacco sales. 
     Such a license could be suspended or revoked if the merchant 
     sells to youths, much like a liquor license.
       The federal regulations will not contain sanctions against 
     the young smokers themselves. But, as the Tribune reported 
     Tuesday, a growing number of suburbs have started to levy 
     fines of up to $50 to teens caught smoking.
       Good starts. Still too wimpy. As far as minors are 
     concerned, tobacco should be like alcohol--a serious, adult 
     product with serious consequences for kids caught using it. 
     Suspended driver's licenses. Community service. Big fines. 
     And the law should be equally harsh with those who sell or 
     distribute tobacco to adolescents.
       Such a policy would pay off in the long run in a variety of 
     ways. Perhaps it would even take some of the prohibitionist 
     heat off adult smokers who, by legal custom, have gained the 
     maturity and judgment to make their own decisions--even 
     stupid ones.

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