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01/24/2000
http://www.usatoday.com:80/usatonline/20000124/1869350s.htm

Tribes get funds to build 'smoke shops'
By Wendy Koch
USA TODAY

The Clinton administration, which has waged an intense war on tobacco, has given four American Indian tribes grants to build
''smoke shops'' that sell discounted cigarettes, according to a Senate report being released today.

The tribes have received $4.2 million from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) since 1997 to build six stores. Five
are in Oklahoma and are part of larger ''travel plazas'' that sell many products. The sixth, in Verdi, Nev., is exclusively a ''smoke shop.''

The stores sell smokeless and pipe tobacco as well as cartons of cigarettes, stocked floor to ceiling, mostly to non-Indians. Tribes
use their tax-free status to offer discounted prices.

''This agency is spending taxpayer money to make it easier for our children to smoke because they can buy cigarettes at discount
prices,'' said Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., whose staff prepared the report.

Bond, chairman of the Senate Small Business Committee, also said, ''We need to find alternative ways to encourage economic
development for our populations in need, especially Native American, without endangering the health of our nation's children.''

HUD spokesman David Egner said the stores represent a tiny slice of the agency's community development block grants, many of
which go to day-care centers, health clinics and water treatment.

''These stores benefit the public by creating desperately needed jobs in poor communities,'' Egner said. ''We can't bar the sale of legal
products without congressional authority.''

The Clinton administration has made reducing teen smoking a priority. It has filed an unprecedented lawsuit against the tobacco
industry arguing that the public was deceived about tobacco's health risks.

Anti-smoking activists decried the federal funding of smoke shops. ''It's totally inconsistent with the administration's policy. These types
of smoke shops have been used to undercut the impact of tax increases in reducing tobacco use, both on Indian land and
elsewhere,'' said Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

Tribal stores are covered by federal rules that bar tobacco sales to minors and require store clerks to check the photo identification of
anyone who looks 27 or younger. Those and other rules, however, are on appeal to the Supreme Court.

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