S.C. law burns teenage smokers

COLUMBIA -- A new South Carolina law that takes effect next month is meant to keep minors from smoking, but some anti-smoking advocates are already questioning whether it will be effective.

Beginning Aug. 21, minors under age 18 caught with cigarettes or other tobacco products can be fined $25, required to complete an approved anti-smoking program or ordered to perform five hours of community service. Minors who don't follow court orders can have driving privileges restricted for 90 days.

The law, signed by Gov. Mark Sanford in February, does not criminalize tobacco possession by minors, specifying that minors can't be arrested for the offense.

"This represents a significant change in state policy," said Sen. Joel Lourie, D-Columbia, who introduced the measure in February 2005. "We want to try to prevent kids from going down that destructive path of tobacco addiction."

While merchants selling tobacco to minors has been illegal for years, minors could still possess tobacco legally. Law enforcement efforts in the past have focused on store sales, using undercover operations to catch merchants selling cigarettes to minors and adults buying for them.

Nearly 25 percent of South Carolina high school students smoke, and 5,900 adults statewide die yearly from smoking-related illnesses, according to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

Pete Fisher, the group's vice president for state issues, predicts the law won't stop teens from lighting up.

"It will have no effect, not when done in isolation like this," he said.

Fisher said the state could cut underage smoking by increasing South Carolina's lowest-in-the-nation cigarette tax, banning smoking in public places and funding prevention programs.

Republicans have refused for years to increase the state's 7-cents-per-pack cigarette tax. The idea made it out of a House subcommittee this year but then died.

The state budget does include $2 million for a smoking cessation program, which Fisher called progress.