JEANS, SMOKES: BAD MIX?

Although I support merchants who have come to America to start a business as well as those who rebuilt after the riots, the article on jeans and cigarettes brings up issues beyond free enterprise (“Leaf and Jean,” by Ed Leibowitz, So SoCal, June 8). It not only glamorizes cigarette smoking but it also resembles still another attempt to lure young people, many of whom also purchase jeans, to buy cigarettes and to smoke.

We already have 3,000 teenagers starting to smoke every day.

The article fails to mention what procedure proprietor Leo Tannenbaum employs to check identification in order to keep from selling cigarettes to those under 18. Also, lowering the price of cigarettes could result in increasing young people’s access to tobacco, since they can always scrape up the few quarters it takes to buy one of Tannenbaum’s $1.62 packs.

Comparing taxes on debilitating nicotine products to the cost of jeans is like comparing laws dealing with cocaine to milk prices. Raising the prices of tobacco products and the taxes on them might be the best public-health strategy to minimize tobacco use and reduce the incidence of disease and death associated with the substance.

Shops like Tannenbaum’s should have to be licensed by the city or state to sell tobacco, just like alcohol vendors are.

Annette Padilla

Santa Ana