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Which interventions against the sale of tobacco to minors can be expected to reduce smoking?
  1. Joseph R DiFranza
  1. Correspondence to Dr Joseph R DiFranza, Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, University of Massachusetts Medical School, 55 Lake Avenue, Worcester, Massachusetts 01655, USA; difranzj{at}ummhc.org

Abstract

Objective Signatories of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control have committed themselves to prohibiting the sale of tobacco to minors. The tobacco industry has a long history of legal challenges to such restrictions claiming that they cannot be expected to reduce youth smoking. The object of this study was to determine if disrupting the sale of tobacco to minors can be expected to reduce tobacco use by youths.

Methods A comprehensive literature search was conducted for studies that evaluated the impact on youth tobacco use of efforts to disrupt the sale of tobacco to youths.

Results There was little evidence that merely enacting a law without sufficient enforcement had any impact on youth tobacco use. There was no evidence that merchant education programmes had any impact on youth older than 12 years of age. There was no evidence that enforcement efforts that failed to reduce the sale of tobacco to minors had any beneficial impact. All enforcement programmes that disrupted the sale of tobacco to minors reduced smoking among youth.

Conclusions Government officials can expect that enforcement programmes that disrupt the sale of tobacco to minors will reduce adolescent smoking.

  • Addiction
  • youth
  • access
  • advertising and promotion

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Footnotes

  • Funding Support for this project was provided by the WHO. The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the funding organisation.

  • Competing interests None.

  • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.