HB 365 MINOR IN POSSESSION OF TOBACCO Number 0615 CHAIRMAN PORTER announced that the next order of business to come before the House Judiciary Committee was HB 365. REPRESENTATIVE BUNDE paraphrased his Sponsor Statement, as follows: "House Bill 365 plugs a loophole. We have a pervasive problem of tobacco use among our young people throughout the United States, and especially in Alaska. In 1992, the federal government passed what is called the Synar Amendment. This requires that states do random, unannounced inspections of locations where tobacco is sold, and try to reduce illegal sales or sales to minors. Currently, Alaska is not able to comply with this federal requirement for compliance checks. Current law would indicate that the young people who are used to achieve these compliance checks could conceivably be charged with Minor in Possession, and adults who work with them could be charged with Contributing to the Delinquency of A Minor. I introduced HB 365 to ensure our state's ability to conform with the compliance checks that are required by the Synar Amendment. It allows young people to work in tandem with law enforcement agencies to complete compliance checks regarding the sale of tobacco to young people. If there are no compliance checks, we do stand to lose some federal support. This legislation would eliminate current obstacles to carrying out compliance checks, and would then reduce the illegal sale of tobacco to our young people." Number 0729 CHAIRMAN PORTER announced the first witness would be Annette Marley, of the Alaska Native Health Board. He then announced that her testimony would be in letter form only. Chairman Porter then called on Stacy Goade. STACY GOADE announced that she would read a statement on behalf of the Juneau Tobacco Prevention Network and the Seven Circles Coalition. She read from a prepared statement, as follows: "The Juneau Tobacco Prevention Network and the Seven Circles Coalition have been working during the past year to conduct underage compliance checks as part of an effort to reduce youth access to tobacco products in Juneau. "The Juneau Tobacco Prevention Network is a grass-roots group working to reduce the harmful effects of tobacco usage, especially among youth. The Network takes a comprehensive approach to tobacco issues, and is focused on four strategies. The Network believes all four strategies are necessary and important if we are going to protect children from tobacco addiction. The first strategy is education and cessation programs. The second is addressing tobacco advertising to youth. The third is tobacco tax increases. Fourth is youth access to tobacco products, which is what HB 365 will help us with. "The Seven Circles Coalition is a regional coalition which seeks to assist communities in creating effective strategies, with youth involvement, to prevent the use of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs and violence among youth. Seven Circles has provided staff and financial support to help the Tobacco Network achieve its goals, especially around issues involving youth access to tobacco. "The Juneau Tobacco Prevention Network became involved during the past year in trying to limit illegal tobacco sales to underage youth in Juneau. This project was initiated due to concerns that educational efforts in the schools, churches, and at home were not working, but in fact were undermined when children were able to walk into a store and easily buy an illegal tobacco product. "We began our compliance checks last May, using 8th grade 14 and 15 year old youth. During the first series of compliance checks, we found that out of 42 purchase attempts, 17 resulted in an illegal sale to a minor. This is an underage purchase rate of 40 percent. We found also that youth have an even easier time purchasing tobacco products at locations in the Mendenhall Valley, where the majority of the youth in this community live, with an underage purchase rate of 55 percent. "It was disturbing how easy it was for these 14 and 15 year old youth, who are all well below the age of 19, which is the legal age, how easy it was for them to buy tobacco from our local retailers. Following the compliance checks, we educated the community and the retailers about the problem of youth access to tobacco products. Managers at all establishments were contacted and alerted to concerns about illegal sales to minors, as well as the clerks, and provided with materials to educate the clerks and signs to post at every check-out stating the law regarding sales to minors. The retailers were encouraged to talk with us and help us ensure that underage youth were not able to purchase tobacco products at their store. "During the follow-up compliance checks two months later, during November and December of 1995, we found clerks were more conscientious about preventing illegal sales to minors. This time we made 45 purchase attempts, with only 9 resulting in illegal sales. The purchase rate for underage minors was then reduced to 20 percent. Again, managers of establishments were contacted, and the names of those retailers continuing to sell tobacco products to underage youth were publicly released. "Additional educational support was offered to retailers, and in the future we hope to conduct a final series of compliance checks which provide immediate feedback to the clerk and the store manager, through either working with the Police Department to issue citations, having youth notify the clerk after the sale has been made that it was an illegal sale, and by contacting the store manager immediately following the purchase attempt. "The legislation being considered today will help to provide legal police support in conducting our follow-up compliance checks and enforcing state law. Up to this point, because it isn't allowed, the police have been very reluctant to be involved with the so- called sting operations. "Although our efforts demonstrated a significant reduction in illegal sales of tobacco to youth, the problem of youth smoking in Juneau has not gone away. In our compliance checks we primarily used younger teenagers, and the youth participating were instructed not to lie about their age directly, and to lie if asked for ID. In real life youth attempting to buy cigarettes and chewing tobacco will lie about their age, and they will use fake ID. They also will get older teenagers to purchase for them. "For these reasons, although we strongly believe in compliance checks as an excellent way to encourage merchant compliance, they are only one piece of the puzzle, and must be used in combination with other strategies to prevent tobacco addiction among youth." Number 1037 CHAIRMAN PORTER asked if there were any other witnesses. Seeing none, he announced the public hearing was closed. REPRESENTATIVE BUNDE made a motion to move HB 365 from the House Judiciary Committee, with individual recommendations. REPRESENTATIVE FINKELSTEIN asked the bill sponsor's permission to amend on the tobacco tax. CHAIRMAN PORTER announced that, hearing no objections, HB 365 was passed out of the House Judiciary Committee.