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Article: TAXING TOBACCO; TACKLE TEEN SMOKING BY BOOSTING THE TAX ON CIGARETTES.(Editorial)(Editorial)
- Article from:
- The Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY)
- Article date:
- December 23, 2004
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of The Herald Co. by the Gale Group, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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More teenagers are getting the right message about smoking cigarettes. It's unhealthy. It fouls breath, stains teeth and turns off the opposite sex. It's just not cool. Teen smoking, in fact, has been on the decline for eight years.
Still, one out of five kids regularly lights up. Each day, more than 4,000 kids try their first cigarette. High school students buy more than 900 million packs of smokes a year. Nearly 90 percent of all adult smokers began their habit as teenagers.
All this, of course, has profound public health and financial consequences. Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death in the country, killing more than 400,000 Americans every year ...