Sophomores Help Anti-Smoking Program

Sophomores Bethany Wiles and Julia Poe yank open the door to a gas station, laughing and chatting about when they are going to chill at the pool. Without glancing around the shop, they walk straight past the aisles of energy drinks and fruit snacks. They giggle all the way to the front counter, where a 50-year-old store clerk stands behind the cash register, eyeing them closely.

Wiles points to an item on the wall. The clerk shuffles over, grabs the item, and scans it under the red sensor. He rings up the bill and asks the girls for $7.

But suddenly, he pauses. He looks at the girls and asks them for a photo ID.

Because Wiles and Poe aren’t trying to buy a bag of chips. They aren’t trying to purchase a bottle of water. They aren’t there to use the restroom.

They’re at a gas station to buy a pack of cigarettes.

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Wiles and Poe weren’t actually purchasing cigarettes. They aren’t smokers. The duo were a part of an experiment by the Johnson County Regional Prevention Center that studied whether gas stations and other stores were selling tobacco to people who were under the age of 18.

Wiles and Poe were driven to over 40 different places around northeastern Johnson County, and at every stop, the two of them would go in the store and ask the clerk at the counter for a pack of Camel Light cigarettes.

“We would always ask for Camel Light because it was the easiest to pronounce and we couldn’t say Marlboro,” said Wiles.

Every single store that Wiles and Poe visited asked the girls to produce some kind of photo ID, a sign that they were not selling tobacco to minors. The two of them would then say that they had forgotten their IDs in the car and go outside, where Megan Katz, a representative from the prevention center who drove the girls around, would go inside the store and congratulate the clerk for passing the test.

“Most stores are told to card anyone who looks under the age of 40,” Wiles said. “And we definitely didn’t look like we were 40. We wanted them to card us, that was kind of the goal.”

Wiles and Poe tried to keep casual conversation while asking for cigarettes, but to many store owners, their acting seemed strange and fake, causing some of the clerks to even scoff at them.

“A lot of the clerks gave us really dirty looks like we were bad kids or whatever,” Wiles said. “They looked like they were worried about these young girls coming into their store and buying cigarettes.”

Wiles’ mother first found out about the experiment via email and told her daughter about it. Wiles thought that it would be a fun experience, and signed up.

Wiles then asked her friend Poe if she would like to accompany her. Poe, who is strongly against smoking, agreed to come along.

“I’m really, really against smoking, especially because my grandma died from lung disease because of smoking,” Poe said.

By participating in the study for two days, the girls merited 15 service hours.

Two other East students who have chosen to remain anonymous to protect the data they obtained, participated in a similar experiment for the Prairie Village Police Department. They were also unable to get any of the gas stations they visited to sell cigarettes to them.

In between the stops at each gas station, Katz had Wiles and Poe fill out forms regarding their results and experiences, as well as other information including the price of the cigarette packs they tried to purchase.

“We would switch off in the front seat of the car because whoever sat there would have to record our experience and whether or not they sold to us,” Wiles said. “It was mostly for research purposes and it wasn’t a fun job so we would trade off.”

Wiles believes that the results of the experiment could have an important effect on underage East students who might be tempted to purchase tobacco from gas stations.

“I think it shows that the stores really are checking for IDs, and that it’s a little discouraging for a student to buy tobacco if they’re under 18,” Wiles said.

Poe thinks that the results of the experiment show that the stores have a sense of public responsibility towards minors.

“I think the result was pretty good,” Poe said. “It was just good to know that stores aren’t just selling cigarettes to kids who could just walk into a store and ask for a pack of them.”