PENALTY FOR UNDERAGE SMOKING

We, the citizens of California, want the State Legislature to enact a law that fines the Tobacco Industry and cigarette companies for allowing children to smoke.

We want each cigarette company to clearly identify their product with their logo, a brand name or some form of licensing number on the butt of each cigarette they sell. 

We want every cigarette company to be fined $100 for each and every underage smoker that is caught.

The target of this law will be Children, who smoke cigarettes at school and in the community without regard for their health or the health of others.

The obvious solution to underage smoking is to ticket the child and the particular brand of cigarette they're smoking; one ticket per child for only one of the cigarettes in their possession not the entire pack.

This will stop the overzealous anti-smoking crowd from trying to bankrupt the entire cigarette industry with one child.

This enforcement tool and fine will allow school officials, Teachers, Law Enforcement and other pre-determined authorities the ability to better enforce any underage smoking laws. 

The fine should be $100 for the cigarette company for each ticket, payable upon receipt and a three-ticket warning system for each student resulting in a one day suspension from school or performance of one day public service. This would be especially beneficial if the public service was at a hospital cancer treatment facility, where the child can mop floors. 

The three-ticket warning system is necessary to permit school administrators and parents the opportunity to address the problem with the child before bringing to bear any harsh consequences.

This law is not intent on penalizing parents for negligence, because it would be too easy for the cigarette companies to redirect the blame and that will do nothing more than undermine the potential strength and success of this idea.

The child will benefit from this law because of the potential health hazard they could have faced later on in their life. The parents of the child that has had to stop smoking will benefit, because of the same health hazard their child might have faced.   And it will, indirectly, benefit other children that haven't even started to smoke, due to diminishing peer pressure.  School officials will benefit because it has given them a weapon to use against underage smokers on campus.

Schools and hospitals could benefit the most from this law if they were to become the major recipients of the fines gathered from the tobacco/cigarette companies.

One part of the two-part ticket will be sent to the cigarette company with the information for the fine attached.  The second part will be mailed to the parent of the child requiring a simple call back to verify arrival after the student's records have been annotated.

This is a very positive solution for underage smoking. A child is found smoking at school, in the community, they are ticketed.  The brand name of the cigarette company on the cigarette is fined for not shouldering their responsibility to keep cigarettes out of children's hands; nothing simpler than that.

This particular solution will not do enough to stop individuals from smoking in our community, but hopefully it will help to control an underage smoking problem that's gotten out of hand.

The fine, as outlined, is not too small, not too large, it is reasonable, and large enough to make the Tobacco Industry take notice if every underage child caught smoking is ticketed.  It gives authorities a reasonable method to fight the problem of children smoking in public and showcases a more direct authority to the children involved in smoking and those other children, standing nearby, witnessing the event.

The law in no way is absolving the responsibility of a parent towards the conduct of their child, because a parent can still administer their own punishment as well towards the child once confronted with the ticket.

This law is simply targeting the obvious connection between the cigarette and the child; and that is the cigarette company.

This law is not taking away a cigarette company's constitutional liberty, because the evidence is irrefutable, it is printed on the tip of the cigarette and the child is underage.

THIS FINE IS INTENDED TO BREAK THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE TOBACCO INDUSTRY AND THE CHILD.  KEEP THE CHILD OFF CIGARETTES, NO FINE.