About Us – Counter Tobacco

Launched in August 2011, CounterTobacco.Org is the first comprehensive resource for local, state, and federal organizations working to counteract commercial tobacco product sales and marketing at the point of sale (POS). Our site offers evidence-based descriptions of the problem, policy solutions, advocacy materials, news updates, and an image gallery exposing tobacco industry tactics at the point of sale.

CounterTobacco.Org is a project of Counter Tools and was previously supported from August 2016 – July 2024 by Cooperative Agreement Numbers 6NU38OT000141-04-01 and NU38OT000307 awarded to ChangeLab Solutions and funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Original funding from August 2011 – July 2016 was provided by by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention through the University of North Carolina Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention and the National Cancer Institute. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the Department of Health and Human Services.

Counter Tobacco and Counter Tools were founded by Kurt M. Ribisl, PhD, Professor of Health Behavior at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and Program Leader for Cancer Prevention and Control at the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and Allison Myers, PhD, now the Associate Dean for Extension and Engagement of Oregon State University’s College of Health.

Why a site dedicated to counter tobacco at the point of sale?

The tobacco industry spends the vast majority of its annual marketing and promotional dollars in the retail environment because POS marketing builds brand recognition and positive brand imagery, encourages tobacco use initiation and consumption and undermines quit attempts. A “War in the Store” began in the early 1990s when tobacco companies battled each other for shelf space and ultimately, consumer loyalty, and the war rages on today with tobacco control organizations taking on the tobacco industry.

Solving the POS problem is a fifth core strategy of tobacco control programming, together with (1) raising cigarette excise taxes, (2) implementing clean indoor air laws, (3) cessation, and (4) launching hard-hitting counter-marketing campaigns. Read more about the importance of retail tobacco control.

Retail tobacco strategies are also key to the tobacco control “endgame” and can serves as a “booster” to the Tobacco Control Vaccine. ^[1] Learn more in our podcast episode on the Tobacco Control Vaccine Booster.