Research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that there are many ways kids obtain cigarettes. For this reason, PM USA takes a comprehensive approach to youth access prevention.
We are the major sponsor of the
Coalition for Responsible Tobacco Retailing's We Card retail education and training program. The Coalition comprises national retail and wholesale associations and tobacco manufacturers who share one common goal: to prevent tobacco sales to underage purchasers.
We Card provides retailers with an array of tools and resources to help prevent underage tobacco sales, including training seminars, interactive online training, in-store signage and educational resources (such as age verification calendars, tip sheets on how to spot fake IDs, and retailer knowledge tests).
Wholesale Leaders - We work with wholesalers to help stores to which they distribute responsibly merchandise tobacco products. Through our Wholesale Leaders program, wholesalers receive
We Card education, distribute
We Card order forms to new stores prior to opening, regularly include the
We Card logo and contact information on their invoices, and certify their compliance with these measures.
Retail Leaders - PM USA's Retail Leaders merchandising programs educate and provide incentives to help retailers merchandise and sell cigarettes in ways that support our youth access prevention efforts.
Read more about Retail Leaders and advertising at retail stores.
To enforce our Underage Tobacco Sales Prevention Policy, we obtain information from appropriate state entities identifying retailers who have been fined or convicted for violating state laws prohibiting tobacco product sales to underage purchasers. This is a challenging effort as different states allocate responsibility for tobacco enforcement differently, and in some states relevant information is not centralized. For example, some states use law enforcement agencies while others use departments of health or alcohol and tobacco control boards.
As of 2007, PM USA was obtaining information from 28 states and one major city.
Upon reviewing information for these states, PM USA imposes penalties on stores that were fined, cited, or convicted of illegal tobacco product sales to underage purchase, in accordance with our Underage Tobacco Sales Prevention Policy.
Our policy provides an added incentive for retailers to ensure that their employees are following the law and checking government-issued photo identification in appropriate circumstances before making tobacco sales. We hope that this policy will encourage more universal and vigilant checking of identification at retail and thereby help reduce youth access to tobacco products.
Social access is a method minors use to obtain cigarettes from third parties such as older friends, siblings, adults, acquaintances or strangers. One form of social access is third-party purchasing, where minors have other individuals purchase tobacco products for them. According to our research, 24 percent of 15- to 17-year olds who smoked a cigarette on at least one of the past 30 days report having obtained their cigarettes in this way (see chart below).
Since 2001, our Youth Smoking Prevention (YSP) department has provided retailers with signs to remind adults not to buy cigarettes for minors. In 2004, we updated these signs to enhance visibility and impact. These signs can be seen at prominent locations at retail stores across the country. In 2007 we broadened the messaging of these signs to remind adults not to purchase any tobacco product for minors.
Laws that prohibit the sale or distribution of tobacco products to minors, as well as laws that prohibit the use or purchase of tobacco products by minors, reflect societal expectations and make good common sense. That is why PM USA favors the enactment and effective enforcement of model youth access prevention laws that, among other things:
- prohibit the sale or distribution of tobacco products to minors and impose civil penalties for clerks and retailers that sell to minors;
- prohibit the use or purchase of tobacco products by minors and impose civil penalties on minors for the purchase or possession of cigarettes;
- penalize adults who purchase cigarettes for kids and require all tobacco products to be located in non-self service locations.
