If we want to discourage kids from making a bad decision to start smoking, we have to let them know there are consequences for their actions. This is an appropriate way to start. Naturally, good advice and guidance from a concerned parent is the strongest deterrent. However, the risk of losing driving privileges for two months will certainly help to reinforce that message. The Southwest Missouri Congressman said that everyone but the teenager is being blamed for teen smoking.
Every parent knows that nothing gets a teenager's attention quicker than the keys to the car.
Its time for the federal government and parents to encourage states to take this common sense approach to teen smoking. The law Blunt proposes does not impose any new federal mandates. It encourages states to enact Blunt's model law by exempting them from a current annual reporting requirement relating to prohibitions against the sale of tobacco products to minors. All 50 states have laws making it illegal to distribute tobacco products to minors. However, only Texas ties the purchase or possession of tobacco products by minors to driving privileges.