[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 63 (Monday, May 18, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4975-S4976]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               THE TOBACCO LEGISLATION AND YOUTH SMOKING

  Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, we will be moving towards the votes as 
set out by the two leaders for votes on these amendments in 
approximately 2 hours. But while there is a brief moment, I would like 
to address the Senate on one of the issues that we will be addressing 
later this evening and on tomorrow. That is the amendment that will be 
offered hopefully in a bipartisan way by Republicans and Democrats on 
the tobacco bill to raise the cost per pack of tobacco from $1.10 to 
$1.50.
  I have hopes that this will be a bipartisan amendment since there 
have been Republicans and Democrats who have supported that position 
both in the Finance Committee when the Finance Committee accepted that 
concept last week and also in the Budget Committee. I think that there 
are those on both sides of the aisle that support that particular 
measure.
  I will strongly support the measure and welcome the opportunity to be 
one of those who commends that position to the Senate, when it is 
hoped, we will have some determination on that as one of the first 
orders of business. I believe that under the proposition, which will be 
announced later on this evening by the two leaders, that will be one of 
the measures which will be addressed and voted on tomorrow. So I will 
just take a few moments now to express my strong support for increasing 
the cigarette price by $1.50 per pack.
  Mr. President, youth smoking in America has reached epidemic 
proportions. According to the report issued last month by the Centers 
for Disease Control Prevention, smoking rates among high school 
students have risen by nearly a third between 1991 and 1997. Among 
African-Americans, the smoking rates have soared by 80 percent. And 
more than 36 percent of high school students smoke--a 19-year high.
  With youth smoking at such a crisis level and still increasing, we 
cannot rely on half measures. Congress must use the strongest 
legislative tools available to reduce youth smoking as rapidly as 
possible.
  The amendment we will have before us tomorrow will provide for a 
cigarette price increase of $1.50 per pack over the next 3 years. The 
$1.10 per pack increase over 5 years in the managers' amendment is not 
adequate to achieve the youth smoking reduction goals of 60 percent. 
And by raising it by $1.50 instead of $1.10 a pack, we can deter an 
additional 750,000 children from smoking over the next 5 years. That 
will mean 250,000 fewer premature deaths from tobacco-induced 
illnesses.
  Public health experts have overwhelmingly concluded that an increase 
of $1.50 a pack is the minimum cigarette price increase necessary to 
achieve our youth-smoking reduction goals.
  Dr. C. Everett Koop and Dr. David Kessler, the National Academy of 
Sciences, the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, 
the American Lung Association, the American Medical Association, the 
ENACT Coalition, and the Save Lives Not Tobacco Coalition have all 
stressed the importance of a price increase of at least $1.50 a pack. 
It is the single most important step we can take to reduce youth 
smoking.

  More than a third of the Senate have already cosponsored bills 
proposing the $1.50 a pack increase. The Senate Budget Committee 
endorsed $1.50 on a bipartisan vote of 14-8 in March. Last Thursday, a 
bipartisan majority in the Finance Committee voted for a cigarette 
price index of $1.50. Too many young lives are at stake for us to 
ignore the advice of all the public health experts.
  Mr. President, the $1.10 increase, on the other hand, simply will not 
do the job. According to the University of Illinois' Professor Frank 
Chaloupka, the Nation's leading authority on the impact of higher 
cigarette prices on teenage smoking, an increase of $1.50 a pack would 
reduce youth smoking by nearly 50 percent. When combined with the youth 
access provisions and other tobacco control measures, the $1.50 per 
pack increase will reduce youth smoking by 60 percent and reach the 
target that we have set. In addition, if the tobacco industry plays by 
the rules and no longer targets young Americans with their 
advertisements and promotions, no look-back penalties would need to be 
applied above the $1.50 a pack increase.
  According to Professor Chaloupka, the $1.10 increase will reduce 
youth smoking by only a third. Even with the nonprice provision in the 
tobacco legislation, it would be very difficult to achieve the targets 
for reducing youth smoking.
  Ask any parents if saving 750,000 additional children from a lifetime 
of nicotine addiction and tobacco-induced disease is worth the extra 40 
cents needed for the $1.50 price increase instead of the $1.10 
increase.
  Ask any person who is concerned about the health of the Nation's 
children whether we should do all we can to prevent these young 
Americans from taking up this deadly habit.
  The vast majority of the American people support the $1.50 per pack 
increase and Congress should support it, too. Ask any taxpayer if they 
want to continue to shoulder the burden of paying the health costs of 
the Nation's smokers. Seventy-five percent of Americans do not smoke, 
yet the Department of Treasury finds that they pay $130 billion each 
year for the health costs in lost productivity of the 25 percent who do 
smoke.
  Ask any American if they have had enough of the tobacco industry's 
distortions and denials of the addictiveness of nicotine or about the 
industry's cynical marketing of cigarettes to children or about the 
industry's decades-long coverup of the health risks associated with 
smoking.

[[Page S4976]]

  This is an industry which once argued that cigarettes are no more 
addictive than Gummy Bears. This is an industry that used Joe Camel in 
advertising blatantly designed to hook children on smoking, yet they 
now ask us to believe that a $1.10 or $1.50 increase will lead to big 
tobacco's bankruptcy and a rampant black market for illegal cigarettes.
  The challenge is clear. One million young people between the ages of 
12 and 17 take up the deadly habit each year--3,000 new smokers a day. 
The average smoker begins smoking at age 13 and becomes a daily smoker 
before age 15. One-third of these children will die prematurely from a 
tobacco-induced disease.
  Once children become hooked on cigarette smoking at a young age, it 
becomes increasingly harder for them to quit. And 90 percent of current 
adult smokers began to smoke before they reached the age of 18. Ninety-
five percent of teenaged smokers say they intend to quit in the near 
future, but only a quarter of them actually do quit within the first 8 
years of beginning to smoke.
  The tobacco companies have known these facts for years. They are 
fully aware that they need to persuade children to take up smoking in 
order to preserve their future profits. That is why big tobacco has 
long targeted children with billions of dollars in advertising and 
promotional giveaways that promise popularity, excitement and success 
for young men and women who take up smoking.
  The recent documents released in the Minnesota case against the 
tobacco industry reveals the true extent of the industry's marketing 
strategy to children.
  In 1981, in the Philip Morris memo, ``Young Smokers, Prevalence, 
Implications and Related Demographic Trends,'' the authors wrote that:

       It is important to know as much as possible about teenage 
     smoking patterns and attitude. Today's teenager is tomorrow's 
     potential regular customer. The overwhelming majority of 
     smokers first begin to smoke while still in their teens.

  The smoking patterns are particularly important to Philip Morris. 
Furthermore, it is during the teenage years that the initial choice is 
made. Nothing is done to reverse this trend in adolescent smoking. The 
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that 5 million of 
today's children will die prematurely from smoke-caused illnesses.
  The American public has had enough of the daily tragedy of death and 
disease caused by tobacco use. They are demanding dramatic action by 
Congress to drastically curb youth smoking. This Congress will be 
judged in large measure by whether or not we respond effectively to 
that challenge. Increasing cigarette prices by $1.50 is the most 
effective way to reduce teenage smoking. The public health community 
agrees it is the minimum increase needed to achieve the national goal 
of reduced youth smoking by 60 percent over 10 years. Study after study 
has shown that raising cigarette prices is the most powerful weapon in 
reducing cigarette use among children, since children have less income 
than adults to spend on tobacco, and most children are not yet 
addicted.
  Philip Morris, the Nation's largest tobacco company, concedes as much 
in an internal memorandum as far back as 1981. That memorandum stated, 
``It is clear that price has a pronounced effect on the smoking 
prevalence of teenagers.'' And the goals of reducing teenage smoking 
and balancing the budget would both be served by increasing the Federal 
excise tax on cigarettes. In 1982, R.J. Reynolds said essentially the 
same thing in that ``the key finding is that younger adult males are 
highly sensitive to price. Price may create a barrier which prevents 
the appeal from developing into an ongoing choice to become a smoker.''
  Canada increased its cigarette prices between 1980 and 1981 until 
there was a $3 difference in cigarette prices with the United States 
overall. An increase of $1.50 a pack is clearly realistic. In addition, 
it is not likely that the $1.50 increase in the manufacturers' level 
will turn into a much higher real price increase at the retail level.
  The difference between a $1.10 increase and a $1.50 increase is 
literally that 750,000 more children will be deterred from smoking over 
the next 5 years. We shouldn't sacrifice these children to a lifetime 
of tobacco-induced illnesses. The lives of these children hang in the 
balance.
  The American people are calling on you to have the courage to act. 
The $1.50 increase has broad public support. The public health 
community deserves the support of the full Senate, too.

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