HELENA - Members of the House and Senate may have different priorities but one goal they do have in common is getting tobacco out of the hands of kids.
According to the Department of Health and Human Services, Montana has made great strides in reducing the number of youth who smoke. They've found a 37% decrease between 2000 and 2006. Representative Dave McAlpin, (D) Missoula, and Senator Greg Lind, (D) Missoula, are proposing two bills to limit youth access to tobacco and prohibit the sale of flavored tobacco products.
"We're very concerned that the way products are marketed and the way they're presented with flavorings like chocolate is going to lead more and more kids to start using tobacco and become addicted," McAlpin said. Despite the 1998 Tobacco Master Settlement Plan in which major manufacturers agreed to end the sale of candy, fruit and alcohol-flavored cigarettes, similar products continue to be sold in Montana. Senate Bill 336 proposes to prohibit these flavored tobacco products all together.
"We don't think there's any reason to have banana flavored, cherry flavored products out there for kids to get started on. So we're going to prohibit those candy and fruit flavoring," McAlpin added.
House Bill 654 proposes to move all tobacco products behind the counter, further away from young would-be customers. Supporter and Executive Director of the American Lung Association of the Northern Rockies, Dick Paulsen, said, "Where Montana's failing has to do with the flavoring of tobacco products and the placement of tobacco products. Out of the reach of children and so there's a clerk that intervenes win the process of the sale." But tobacco companies have objections. Opponents say both bills infringe on the rights of tobacco companies to market these products to age-appropriate consumers.
"It really amounts to a total ban on the use of the product. And we don't believe that that's a reasonable or fair way to approach the problem of the sale of tobacco to minors. It over reaches without question. And it makes it very difficult for the legislature, I think, to grasp how they should handle the problem and how they should treat it."
Opponents say both bills are too far-reaching. They say trying to regulate too many kinds of products and applying these rules to manufacturers and retailers potentially subjects the bills to court challenges.