Washington, D.C. -- Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) has introduced legislation to help crack down on illegal sales of tobacco to children by banning the shipment of cigarettes and other tobacco products through the U.S. mail. The postal code already makes it illegal to mail alcoholic beverages and guns. Specifically, the bill would add cigarettes and smokeless tobacco to the United States Postal Service’s (USPS) list of restricted, non-mailable products. Any person found guilty of mailing such a product would be liable for a civil penalty of up to $5,000 or ten times the estimated retail value of the tobacco products, including all federal, state, and local taxes, whichever is highest, for a first violation. Civil penalties of up to $100,000 would be imposed for each subsequent violation.
“Internet sales of tobacco are growing and growing fast. Unfortunately, effective safeguards against illegal sales to young people are virtually non-existent on the more than 400 websites selling tobacco, making it easier and cheaper for kids to buy cigarettes,” said Senator Collins. “Not only does the delivery of cigarettes and other tobacco products through the mail create opportunities for tax evasion, but it also creates an easy means through which children and young people can obtain these potentially deadly products. My legislation will close a loophole that has allowed Internet and mail order companies to circumvent the law and has contributed to teenage access to cigarettes.”
Tobacco remains the number one preventable cause of death in the United States, accounting for more than 400,000 deaths a year and billions of dollars in health care costs. Ninety percent of all smokers start before they are twenty-one. A 2002 American Journal of Public Health study found that 20 percent of cigarette-selling websites do not say anything about sales to minors being prohibited. More than half require only that the buyer say they are of legal age. Another 15 percent require only that the buyer type in their date of birth and only 7 percent require any driver’s license information.
Internet “stings” conducted by Attorneys General in at least 15 states have found that children as young as nine years old are able to purchase cigarettes easily. One study in The Journal of the American Medical Association reported that kids as young as 11 were successful more than 90 percent of the time in purchasing cigarettes over the Internet. Moreover, since Internet cigarette vendors typically require a two-carton minimum purchase, many high school and middle school buyers of Internet tobacco also end up serving as suppliers of cigarettes to other kids.
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