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).
Independently, PM USA requires that stores post
We Card signs or their equivalent in the more than 240,000 retail stores that are regularly visited by a PM USA sales representative.
Since the
We Card program launched in 1995, it has:
- Sponsored 2,100 live training seminars – including custom manager-level training programs for retail chains – where more than 100,000 retailers were trained.
- Distributed more than 1 million We Card training and resource kits to retailers nationwide.
- Developed state-of-the-art online and CD-ROM training formats that enable retailers to train employees at their convenience.
The
Coalition for Responsible Tobacco Retailing's We Card website, provides practical information, tips, training, and materials that help retailers reduce tobacco sales to minors.
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 educates and provides incentives to help retailers merchandise and sell cigarettes in ways that support youth access prevention efforts.
The Retail Leaders Program supports youth access prevention efforts through requiring all participants of the program to merchandise all cigarettes ─ PM USA as well as other manufacturers in non-self service locations. This has helped to create a retail environment where 94 percent of cigarette volume is out of the reach of kids. This is a significant impact on the national landscape since only 46 percent of the cigarette volume is non-self service because of state legislation.
In 2008 PM USA accomplished the following:
- 94% of volume was signed to Retail Leaders
- 85.5% of all stores that our sales force regularly calls on were signed to Retail Leaders
- 94% of all Retail Leaders volume agreed not to place cigarettes or cigarette signs on, above or in front of the principal selling counter
Read more about PM USA's Retail Leaders program.
To enforce our Underage Tobacco Sales Prevention Policy, we obtain information from appropriate state entities identifying retailers that have been convicted, penalized, or otherwise identified by a state agency, for having sold tobacco in violation of state or local minimum age requirements. 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 2008, PM USA was obtaining information from 26 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. PM USA imposed more than 4,800 penalties in 2008.
Our policy provides an added incentive for retailers to ensure that their businesses 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 or other tobacco products from third parties such as 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, we have 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. Through December 2008, 95% of workload stores currently displayed our social access signs.
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:
- Require Non Self-Service of Tobacco Products;
- Require retailers that sell tobacco products to have a license;
- Penalize adults who purchase tobacco products for kids and require all tobacco products to be located in non-self service locations.
In 2008, six states passed Youth Access Prevention legislation that was either identical or very similar to our model legislative provisions.
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