ing to the Texas Department of Public Safety. Also, 3,000 youths have taken the tobacco-awareness course since the anti- smoking law took effect. In, Morrison County, Illinois, police chief, Bob Snodgrass said that “underage smoking, once prevalent on the streets, has become rare since their law went into effect.” In Vancouver, Washington, most adult and teens, despite whether they smoked, believe the law is a good thing, according to interviews conducted by their local news, KOIN. Nineteen-year-old, Tony Smith was safe from the new law, but said he never would have started smoking if the law was around a few years ago. This proposal to make teen smoking illegal will work because teens would fear the punishment. Teenagers don’t like community service, or the idea of spending their entire Saturday at an anti-smoking class. Tony Smith said, “Oh no, I wouldn’t smoke because I wouldn’t want to pay that 50 bucks and do to classes!” A fine of $50 to $250 is serious money for most teenagers. Even if a teen holds down a part time job, he or she makes near minimum-wage. A fine of that size could mean one or two paychecks. It is enough that a teen that wants to smoke has to pay outrageous prices for cigarettes, but there would also be the fear of having to pay a huge fine. Why would any teen want to start? Enforcement of this policy would certainly lower the percentages of teens that smoke. It would be enforced the same way underage drinking is. If a police officer sees a young person drinking, he or she would ask for I.D. and then follow procedure from there. The only difference in this would be that police officers would also have to watch out for underage smokers, not just drinkers. One idea, to ensure that the law is enforced would be that for each time a police officer cites a teen for smoking, a percentage of the fine that the teen would pay, would go to the officer. This would be an added incentive...
