Oral

Brick and mortar tobacco retailers and the Internet continue to be important environments influencing the initiation and maintenance of tobacco use. They also represent challenging and complex areas to regulate and achieve sustained compliance with tobacco control laws. This series of presentations highlights two statewide campaigns in New York and California that are building momentum across multiple communities by creating statewide campaigns deployed locally. Another presentation presents findings from a study examining the impact of voluntary agreements with credit card companies and major private shippers on Internet tobacco sales. This study suggests that voluntary agreements fail to achieve the level of compliance necessary to achieve public health goals. A final presentation discusses San Francisco’s success with using its tobacco retail licensing permit program as a tool to eliminate tobacco sales from businesses where pharmacy services are rendered. This approach represents a “second generation” level of tobacco policy in the retail environment and suggests a promising approach for addressing a broad array of tobacco marketing and sales issues at the point of sale.

Session Objectives: Identify strategies for creating cohesive statewide campaigns to address the point-of-sale environment. Describe the utility of using a tobacco retail license or permit program to address factors beyond illegal tobacco sales to minors. Describe the impact of voluntary policies and partial bans regulating the sale and distribution of tobacco products via the Internet.

CE Credits: Medical (CME), Health Education (CHES), Nursing (CNE), Public Health (CPH) , Masters Certified Health Education Specialist (MCHES)