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Tobacco sales to Hawaii youngsters under age 18 are in a downward spiral, thanks in part to sting operations using teen-agers as buyers through a joint effort of police, the state Department of Health and the University of Hawaii Cancer Research Center. Stings credited with
slowing sales of
tobacco to minors
By Harold Morse
Star-BulletinThe sting -- part of the overall effort to reduce teen smoking -- uses teens aged 15-17, carrying identification, who try to buy cigarettes under supervision of an undercover officer.
In this approach, 249 Oahu stores were checked this year, 87 on the Big Island and 66 in Maui County. Kauai has not yet been checked. The breakdown on stores selling: Oahu 68, or 28.3 percent; Big Island 27, or 31.08 percent; Maui 19, or 28.8 percent.
The total comes to 402 stores checked in three counties, with 114 selling, for a total of 28.4 percent violating the law against selling tobacco to minors.
Jaime Rabacal, 17, was one of about 20 participating teens who showed up at a news conference yesterday at the Cancer Research Center at 1236 Lauhala St.
Rabacal, soon to be a Roosevelt High senior and one of some 50 buyers this spring, was in a group that fanned out over Leeward and Central Oahu. She made cigarette buys in Waipahu in April.
"When we buy the cigarettes we have like an evidence bill, a $5 bill, and it's marked," she said. "We ask the vendor for cigarettes. He asked our age."
Even though she showed her identification, some clerks either disregarded it or couldn't do the math and made the sale.
"They would sometimes sell it to us even though they looked at it," she said. "Then we would give the change and cigarettes to the police officer."
She scored five times, which meant a $500 first-offender fine to each erring clerk, not the store. That's how state law works.
"We had a project in school and we were required to go into the community," she said.
Results also were announced from a different study -- a fifth annual series of inspections that show tobacco sales to minors have declined here for the fourth straight year.
This survey, which utilizes minors not carrying identification, monitors state compliance with the Synar Regulation of the federal Public Health Service Act of 1993.
The regulation is a mandate that each state document a rate of tobacco sales to minors of no more than 20 percent by the year 2000. This year, Hawaii came in at 7 percent, thus ensuring it gets more than $3 million in annual federal funds to carry out drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs, the sting operations and related work.
In addition, still a third approach was taken, from July 3, 1999, through March 11, 2000. The Health Department under contract with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration performed inspections to enforce the federal regulation prohibiting sales to minors. These FDA checks took place at 1,260 stores statewide. The noncompliance rate was 22 percent.
Thus, in comparing figures, rates of two of the approaches (police-assisted inspections 28.4 percent and FDA inspections 22 percent) were much higher than the 7 percent of tobacco sales to minors not carrying identification.
Bruce Anderson, state health director, said this indicates great progress has been made in educating clerks to ask for identification before selling. The challenge now is to emphasize teaching them to read the IDs accurately and not sell to minors, he said.