Sullivan’s Plan to Ban Cigarette Machines Gets Cool Reception

Health and Human Services Secretary Louis W. Sullivan called on states Thursday to ban cigarette vending machines, saying: “We must put an end to the time when any child with a handful of change can commence slow-motion suicide.”

But Sullivan’s offer of a “model bill” for state legislatures to pass was criticized by anti-smoking groups and Democratic legislators as a halfhearted gesture that fails to sink federal teeth into the problem.

“The White House tactic of paying lip service to important national goals while rejecting federal action is irresponsible,” Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) said in a prepared statement.

Kennedy, sponsor of a $110-million anti-smoking bill, added: “We cannot simply dump our major national problems on the states.”

In addition to banning cigarette vending machines, Sullivan’s model bill suggests that merchants who sell tobacco pay annual licensing fees of $50 to $100. It calls for civil penalties for violators, instead of the criminal sanctions that are now rarely enforced, “to avoid the time delays and costs of the court system.”

Speaking with reporters after testifying before the Senate Finance Committee, Sullivan responded that local control, although lax now, is the key to better enforcement. He added that his plan would avoid creating “another federal bureaucracy.”

In his testimony, Sullivan said that an estimated 1 million American teen-agers start smoking each year. He cited a newly released government report showing that Utah, a heavily Mormon state, issued nearly 4,500 violations involving cigarette sales to minors. But the remaining 43 states with laws banning cigarettes to anyone under age 19 issued a total of 32 violations.

“These laws are being blatantly ignored,” Sullivan said, emphasizing that cigarette vending machines each year aid more than 3 million minors in consuming nearly 1 billion packs of cigarettes.

“You can’t buy beer from a vending machine,” he said. “Why should you be able to purchase cigarettes there?”

The government report found that the 375,000 vending machines nationwide account for 16% of the cigarettes sold to minors.

The Amusement and Music Operators Assn., which represents the vending industry, said that the figure is high and said that four-fifths of the machines are in places where minors are prohibited or are unlikely to frequent, such as bars, offices and universities.

Charles O. Whitley, senior consultant to the Tobacco Institute, objected to Sullivan’s proposal, telling the committee that the tobacco industry already is policing itself adequately. He asserted that controls aimed at keeping children from smoking would work no better than similar controls to keep them from drinking.

But anti-smoking groups criticized Sullivan’s suggestions for being too weak.

“Tobacco smoking among young people requires implementation of a national law, but the secretary has instead put the burden on 50 states to enact and enforce 50 different laws,” said a joint statement of the Coalition on Smoking OR Health, an umbrella group for the American Heart Assn., American Lung Assn. and American Cancer Society.

Last week, the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee approved Kennedy’s anti-smoking bill, which would establish an office in the Centers for Disease Control to regulate tobacco, expand education and research programs and provide grants to states for anti-smoking programs.