Preventing Kids From Starting a Bad Habit

In response to Kathy Smith’s column of Nov. 23 (“Unhealthy Choices Are Better Than No Choice”): The underlying goal of Proposition 10 was to increase the tax on cigarettes to discourage teens from initiating smoking. Research has indicated that young smokers are at an increased risk for chronic smoking, but that increasing the cost of cigarettes decreases the rate at which teens smoke.

Healthy choices are not simply a matter of education but, as most research indicates, are the result of complex interactions among personal, social and environmental factors. Furthermore, while the personal freedom argument has been a staple in the tobacco industry, freedom cuts both ways. Many question the tobacco industry’s freedom to target kids with Joe Camel advertising. Why raise taxes on cigarettes? The answer is simple: Smoking among young people is increasing. As former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop points out, once addicted, our kids may find kicking cigarettes as tough as kicking heroin.

ELAINE ROBINSON-FRANK

Hawthorne