Putting Out the Flame of Desire for Young Smokers

Talking and smoking, my 17-year-old son and a friend stood outside the old Fox Theater in Westwood before the show. Up came a policeman, asked for their driver’s licenses and said they were smoking illegally. Then, after searching them, he gave them citations ordering them to appear at Juvenile Court on a 308(b) penal code violation: possession of tobacco by a minor.

They were shocked, and worried about losing their licenses, if not their freedom. As their parents, we were equally shocked, but ambivalent. With everything going on nowadays--drugs, gangs, robberies--this didn’t seem the best use of police or court time. But the smoking was an ongoing battle, and we welcomed whatever help the village would provide in raising our children.

Actually, the village’s commitment isn’t clear-cut. It was California’s grocers who helped toughen the law, which originally made it a crime for minors to buy or receive tobacco products. Selling to minors was also illegal, with stiffer penalties, and grocers were tired of youngsters coming in--or being sent in by anti-smoking advocates--and going from checker to checker until someone slipped up.

“There’s a shared responsibility here,” said California Grocers Assn. President Peter Larkin. “If we expect to eliminate smoking in minors, everyone has a role, including the minor.”

At the behest of the grocers association, the Legislature passed a bill that took effect in January 1997, making the act of underage smoking a crime.

To those enforcing the law--Los Angeles police, sheriff’s deputies, school police--teenage smoking isn’t a big concern. It’s important only in association with other behaviors that come under the Juvenile Court citation program--loitering, violating curfew, alcohol abuse and drug possession. Because youngsters in groups are often smoking, an officer can walk up and cite them for that while looking for other problems.

The LAPD alone handed out 900 smoking citations last year, and each of the county’s 10 Juvenile Courts are handling up to 100 a month.

For a youth who has never been to court, that’s where the smoking ticket gets serious.

Dressed, combed and accompanied by parents, my son and his friend checked in at Juvenile Court in Santa Monica, took numbers, found seats in the crowd and obeyed the sign saying “Quiet. Court in Session.” They read and signed a statement of their rights.

Finally, each in turn was called before the Juvenile Court referee--high bench, black robe and all. He lectured them briefly about smoking and issued the kicker: There’s a “mandatory minimum fine of $246”--actually a fine of $75, plus a penalty of $17 for each $10 of fine, plus $35 for late payment. But attending an eight-hour smoking program could reduce it--to $35 for the Corrective Behavior Institute, which puts on the program, and $35 for the court.

In court, smoking isn’t treated as secondary to anything. It’s “a gateway drug,” said Long Beach Juvenile Court Referee Claire Vermillion, “because smoking is a risk-taking behavior.”

The same point was made to the two teenagers at their smoking seminar, one of several Corrective Behavior Institute programs to which courts now refer youths cited for drinking, drug use, traffic violations, truancy, shoplifting and “reckless behavior.”

Held at a church, the seminar was a standard stop-smoking program.

But these were kids, and cool. Most were boys, many only 13 or 14, who had been ticketed by school police. A few were tossed out of the seminar for foul language. Some were already beyond tobacco.

“They were like, ‘Hey, I was dealing coke on the corner when the cops come by, give me a ticket for dealing and a ticket for smoking as well,’ ” my son said.

To teenagers, the mortality issue is, in my son’s words, “just b.s.” But some kids, he says, “will think it over because it’s a pain in the tail to go to court and to these classes.”

Whatever. Any pain will serve, even the pain of boredom.

“It’s important to hold the kids accountable,” said Pamela A. Davis, Juvenile Court referee in Santa Monica, “so they see there are consequences, that it’s going to be a hassle. The harder it is, the less enjoyable it’ll be to smoke.”

The smoking cases are dealt with quickly. But even if they become a hassle, it will be worth it--for teenage smokers and the rest of the village as well.