HARTFORD, Conn. -- The attorney general has been targeting online social networks for years, calling for protection of underage members. Now he's after Web sites that sell cigarettes. He is calling for the government to get involved and stop delivery to underage customers.

“These sales are done without age verification and without payment of taxes,” Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said.

Smokers can order cigarettes from the Internet and evade the minimum age and taxes, but it is the United States Postal Service that delivers them, he said.

The United States Postal Service is the only carrier that continues to deliver cigarettes because it contends it lacks legal authority to refuse these shipments, and Blumenthal is asking Congress to give the postal service that legal authority.

“The state of Connecticut is losing millions of dollars as a result of these Internet sales that are made possible, enabled and encouraged, because the United States Postal Service, an arm of the federal government, delivers and ships these cigarettes to people's own doors,” Blumenthal said.

Blumenthal wants Congress to act on this during this session.