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Posted on 08/09/2002 8:01:59 AM PDT by Cagey

Less than a week after their mother posted fliers around their West Bend neighborhood urging people to turn her twin sons in to police if they were seen smoking, the boys said Thursday on a nationally televised news show that they had quit.

Recent Coverage Twins: Shame on you, teen smokers' mom says

Gavin and Bradley Belunes announced during a CNN interview with Connie Chung that they had made a pact with each other not to smoke anymore.

The pledge, they said, was "not just because of my mom, but with each other," Bradley Belunes told Chung, according to a show transcript taken from the CNN.com Web site. "If we're going to quit, we might as well do it together."

"I'm not going to quit because they preached to me or, 'It's bad for you, don't do it.' You know, I'm going to quit because I want to quit. And I want to quit now," Gavin Belunes said.

His reason? "Because I don't want to be laying on my death bed 30 years from now."

The boys, now 16, began smoking when they were 12. Their mother, Karen Paape, was so frustrated with their habit that she snapped her sons' pictures, made some fliers and posted them outside two West Bend gas stations.

"If you see them smoking, please call the police on them. Signed, their loving parents," the poster said.

Chung called the idea "a little crazy" but applauded Paape for the success of her tactic.

"Mom, give me five. You did it," Chung said, according to the transcript.

Her sons' decision to quit smoking so impressed Paape, who described herself as a social smoker, that she also promised to give up cigarettes.

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