The measure imposes penalties on the industry if these underage smoking targets aren't hit. That's so little that tobacco companies easily could dismiss it as a routine cost of doing business. After all, they're being asked to shrink their future market. Anyone who thinks they'll do that to save 15 cents a pack is dreaming. Worse, the McCain bill fails to target those penalties company by company, and an effort to put such targets in failed Wednesday.
Targeted penalties are vital to give each company a real incentive to cut back on youth smoking.
With high, targeted penalties, each company would have a strong incentive to lower its share of the teen market and shift the penalty toward its competitors. Without these targets, the companies will have every incentive to cheat on the intent of the deal, just as they've squirmed out of past deals with the government that carried carefully crafted loopholes. Lawmakers have a unique opportunity here to take a dramatic step to improve the nation's health, but only if the plan makes real progress toward stopping underage smoking. Unless senators are willing to take a tougher stand, this bill deserves to go up in smoke.