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Tobacco sting
program snuffed
The FDA cuts funding for a
By Helen Altonn
state operation that monitored
cigarette sales to teens
Star-BulletinA Hawaii program funded by the Food and Drug Administration to enforce the federal law prohibiting sales of cigarettes to minors has been halted.
The FDA issued an order to all states yesterday to stop such programs after the Supreme Court said Congress didn't authorize the federal agency to regulate tobacco products.
The state Department of Health has used teen volunteers to detect illegal sales to minors under a $306,405 FDA contract.
Of that, $210,000 is subcontracted to the Cancer Research Center of Hawaii to conduct Kids Against Tobacco Sales sting operations with the DOH Alcohol and Drug Division.
"We're going to be scrambling to see if we can find some way to support this activity," state Health Director Bruce Anderson said today. "There's too much at stake to let it die."
Trained teen-agers, 15 to 17 years old, have been conducting 100 to 120 inspections a month of retail outlets statewide to make sure they're not selling cigarettes to minors, Anderson said.
These activities must be stopped now unless other funding is found, he said.
Even more is at stake, Anderson said, pointing out states are required to reduce teen cigarette sales to below 20 percent in a survey or lose a share of FDA funding for alcohol and drug treatment.
Hawaii's penalty could be as much as $2.7 million, he said.
Hawaii last year was listed as one of the nation's four leading states in reduced cigarette sales to teens. The rate dropped from 44 percent in 1996 to about 11 percent last fall.
However the latest figures reported in January show the rate tripled to 37.7 percent after teen volunteers began showing identification.
Program leaders believe retail clerks just assumed teens were old enough to buy cigarettes and did not look closely at the identification.
"We might not be getting the whole story," said Karen Glanz, researcher at the cancer center.
Glanz said state-funded monitoring will continue to enforce the state law prohibiting cigarette sales to minors but at a lower level.
"The FDA program was much larger and probably more valuable because it was to go to every single store in the state and go back to those in violation, so that has stopped," she said.
Anderson said the issue seems to be largely technical -- whether FDA has jurisdiction to regulate control of tobacco, which is not considered to be a drug.
He said Congress is being pressured to to find some way to reallocate the funds through another agency, such as the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
"The deterrent provided by not having easy access to cigarettes is significant as it relates to adolescent use of tobacco," Anderson said.
Anderson speculated that Hawaii's tobacco settlement money could be tapped to continue the inspections.
No full-time positions are affected but the federal funds have supported a part-time coordinator at the DOH and seven part-time positions at the Cancer Research Center.
