Rick Allen: “there are those here in Washington who believe that we do not need strong tobacco legislation. The other day the tobacco…”

“there are those here in Washington who believe that we do not need strong tobacco legislation. The other day the tobacco industry announced that it was withdrawing from settlement negotiations. But we need strong legislation because what is happening back at home is criminal. Let me give my colleagues an example. I am proud of my home State of Maine, but back in Maine we have a smoking problem. We just did a survey in Maine, and it shows that teenage girls are smoking at a higher rate than boys and that the smoking rate of young girls has increased by 30 percent since 1993. As one of our officials said, ``Now the slogan `you've come a long way, baby' has different meaning in Maine.'' As our Human Services Commissioner said, we would call out the Marines, the National Guard and the Border Patrol if we thought that the Colombian drug cartel was on their way to addicting one-quarter of America's youths, but the tobacco industry has free reign. It is time to call a halt. It is time in this session for strong tobacco legislation.”