As President Clinton has said, teen smoking is a national epidemic. A deadly threat. A national tragedy. One in four high school seniors now smoke every day. Three-quarters of them will still be smoking five or six years later, even though they planned to stop.
Tobacco is truly a teenage wasteland.
And so, on behalf of America's children, I applaud Representative Fazio and his colleagues for their courage and leadership in sponsoring comprehensive tobacco legislation to protect our children. Like the legislation introduced by Senator Conrad last month, and the bipartisan bill that Senators Harkin, and Chafee, and Graham will introduce tomorrow, Fazio legislation steps up to a critical challenge that the President has posed to Congress. That challenge is to adopt comprehensive tobacco legislation this year that meets his five key principles for strong, effective legislation. Bipartisan support is growing in Congress for comprehensive tobacco legislation. We've now reached a critical milestone in our marathon effort to protect our children from the leading preventable cause of death.