As tobacco controls lessen, sales to minors seem to rise

Illegal tobacco sales to teenagers soared in undercover sting operations last year, as cities eliminated or drastically scaled back their tobacco control programs, according to a report scheduled to be released today.

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health, which bankrolled local enforcement efforts for a decade, spent $50.5 million on antismoking campaigns as recently as fiscal year 2001 and served as a model for antitobacco campaigns around the globe. By last July, the state had slashed annual spending on tobacco control to $2.5 million.

As a result, 190 cities and towns across the Commonwealth have shuttered their tobacco enforcement offices, with other municipalities significantly reducing their antismoking campaigns, which had included educational efforts, treatment programs, and enforcement. Since those initiatives were curtailed, teenage volunteers enlisted by health boards and other coalitions have found it far easier to buy cigarettes.

"When the budget was cut, there was a lot of outcry from public service agencies saying this was going to happen, and now we know that is exactly what happened," said Jim Wells, director of the tobacco control program for the South Shore Boards of Health Collaborative. "We're jeopardizing the health of our children."

Underage teenagers working for Wells and 20 other coalitions and boards of health made 7,702 attempts to purchase cigarettes last year in convenience stores, gas stations, and supermarkets. In localities that had eliminated tobacco control programs that once performed more regular enforcement activities, the rate of sales to undercover teenagers climbed from 7.7 percent in 2002 to 15.4 percent last year. In cities and towns that still had tobacco control campaigns, the level of underage sales rose from 8 percent to 13.9 percent over the same time period.

The teenagers, typically 16- and 17-year-olds, were sent in without identification and just enough money to buy a pack of cigarettes. State law requires retailers to ask for an ID from anyone appearing to be under the age of 27 and prohibits them from selling tobacco to anyone under age 18.

"We don't send in kids with beards and all made up in suits and furs and pulling up in Jaguars," Wells said. "We get 10th- or 11th-graders to go in, and they really look like high schoolers."

One of those teens is a 10th-grader from the North Shore named Michael. He has been venturing into shops and asking for Marlboro reds for a year.

"Sometimes, they just give them to you, and you pay for them, and then you leave," said Michael, 16, whose full identity was not disclosed because he is still working in the undercover operations. "They don't even ask for an ID."

The teen volunteers are paid by the state.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Public Health, which has been hard hit by budget cuts, said the agency could not draw a direct link between the budget cuts and increased sales to minors. Still, the agency plans to review the findings and determine if laws prohibiting underage tobacco sales need to be strengthened or better enforced, spokeswoman Roseanne Pawelec said.

The budget for the coming fiscal year proposed by Governor Mitt Romney's administration leaves tobacco control funding flat at $2.5 million.

"The monitoring program was always meant to act as a supplemental check and balance on these retailers, but clearly the responsibility for cigarette sales to teenagers rests at the retailer's door," Pawelec said.

Retailers who sell to underage smokers can face fines and even suspension of their permits to sell tobacco products. From July through December of last year, 28 tobacco retail permits were pulled by local health agencies, out of 7,500 permits statewide.

The stakes can be steep for retailers: The average convenience store reaps up to two-fifths of its sales from cigarettes.

"If they lose their license to sell tobacco, they lose their livelihood," said Cathy Flaherty, executive director of the New England Convenience Store Association, which has about 1,000 members in Massachusetts. "I don't think anybody is selling cigarettes to kids because they want to. I think they're just making mistakes. They're getting frenzied, and they just look at somebody and . . . think he's of age."

Since its inception in the early 1990s, the state's Tobacco Control Program had been the envy of antismoking warriors across the nation and the bane of the tobacco industry. Its advertising campaigns and stop-smoking programs were emulated as far away as Poland and New Zealand.

But budget cuts that began in 2002 and accelerated in 2003 rendered the program a shadow of its former self, a reality, health advocates said, not lost on those who buy and sell cigarettes illegally.

"Everybody knows Tobacco Control Programs have been decimated, and everybody knows they're not out there doing the regular enforcement," said Cheryl Sbarra, director of the Tobacco Control Program for the Massachusetts Association of Health Boards.

"There's no teeth anymore," she said.

Stephen Smith can be reached at stsmith@globe.com.