Welcome to CounterTobacco.org’s new “News and Research Roundup!” Each month we’ll be posting a summary of the latest research, reports, and news stories on counteracting tobacco product sales and marketing at the point of sale (POS). Keeping up with what’s happening in the POS movement all across the country can help you choose policies and strategies that work best for your community. New research can help provide support for your work and evidence for the importance of the “War in the Store.” Have a story you don’t want us to miss? E-mail it to us!

New Research

Disparities and Density: 

• The Impact of the Tobacco Retail Outlet Environment on Adult Cessation and Differences by Neighborhood Poverty. Addiction.
  • This study found that smokers living in neighborhoods with a high density of tobacco retailers were less likely to maintain abstinence from smoking, but only in poor neighborhoods
  • Find more information on how the tobacco industry targets low-income populations and disparities in POS advertising and retailer density.
• How the Industry is marketing menthol cigarettes: the audience, the message, and the medium. Tobacco Control.
  • This study highlights how the tobacco industry targets vulnerable populations such as African-Americans and youth in their advertising and promotion of menthol cigarettes, including coupons.
  • Find more about the “Menthol Wars.”
• Density and Proximity of Tobacco Outlets to Homes and Schools: Relations with Youth Cigarette Smoking. Prevention Science.
  • This report shows that youth living within 1 mile of a high density of tobacco outlets smoked more frequently.
  • Find more information on Licensing and Zoning to restrict tobacco sales and tobacco outlet density in residential areas.

Tobacco Marketing: 

• Cigarette design and marketing features are associated with increased smoking susceptibility and perception of reduced harm among smokers in 27 EU countries Tobacco Control.

  

  • This study in the EU adds to the evidence that tobacco marketing, packaging, and flavored tobacco products, including menthol, influence individuals to initiate smoking and affect young peoples’ perceptions of the harm of such products. Australia is leading the way in banning displays and promotion of tobacco in the retail setting, and these two studies shows why that matters: increased exposure to point of sale tobacco marketing is linked with increased smoking and smoking susceptibility. Banning displays can help prevent youth from initiating smoking or help people quit by decreasing exposure to tobacco promotion and by de-normalizing tobacco use.

• A Systematic Review on the Impact of Point-of-Sale Tobacco Promotion on Smoking Journal of Nicotine & Tobacco Research
  • News Story: Tobacco display ban protects youth and quitters: Otago Research
• Out of Sight and Out of Mind? Evaluating the Impact of Point-of-Sale Tobacco Display Bans on Smoking-Related Beliefs and Behaviors in a Sample of Australian Adolescents and Young Adults Journal of Nicotine & Tobacco Research.
  • News Story: Smoking Rates Among the Young Have  Fallen After the Ban on Displaying Cigarettes in Stores, Business Insider Australia

Tobacco Sales at Pharmacies:

• Cigarette Purchases at Pharmacies by Patients at High Risk of Smoking-Related Illness JAMA Internal Medicine.
  • This study shows that smokers taking medications for illnesses that cigarette smoking can exacerbate, such as asthma, COPD and hypertension, purchase cigarettes at the pharmacies where they fill their prescriptions an average of every other month. This adds to the evidence that the decision of some pharmacies to stop selling cigarettes could help prevent individuals who are at greatest risk from buying cigarettes.
  • Check out our Tobacco-Free Pharmacies Action Guide for information on encouraging pharmacies to end tobacco sales, and visit http://www.shoptobaccofree.org for more ways to encourage pharmacies and other retailers to end tobacco sales.

New Reports

• Check out the guide to learn how to use indicators to measure the impact of your Point of Sale efforts: Preventing Initiation of Tobacco Use: Outcome Indicators for Comprehensive Tobacco Control Programs–2014.  This updated guide from the CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health (OSH) includes an updated logic model and updated Goal Area 1 outcomes and indicators for the National Tobacco Control Program, addressing preventing tobacco use initiation, including:
  • Outcome 1.1.c. Level of support for policies, and for enforcement of policies, to decrease availability of tobacco to young people
  • Outcome 3: Increased Restriction and Enforcement of Tobacco Product Sales, Availability, and Use
  • Outcome 4: Increased Policy and Enforcement Efforts to Reduce Tobacco Industry Influence
  • Outcome 6: Decreased Exposure to Tobacco Marketing and Availability of Tobacco Products
  • Outcome 7 Reduced Tobacco Industry Influence and 1.7.a. Extent and type of retail tobacco advertising
  • Outcome 8: Increased Price of Tobacco Products

For more resources, check out Policy Solutions for Restricting Product Availability, Placement, and Packaging, Raising Tobacco Prices Through Non-Tax Approaches, and Restricting Tobacco Advertising and Promotions on our website.

POS Policy in the Media

• Is it time to ban menthol cigarettes and all flavoured tobacco in Canada?, Canada.com
• When all cigarette packs look the same, fewer people buy them, Washington Post blog
• France introduces plain packaging to stub out  high smoking rates, Business Insider
• FDA Increases Maximum Retail Violation Fine: Penalties go up for repeat offenders, Tobacco E-News, CSPnet.com
• Brian Davis: Big tobacco targets S.J.’s youth with $1 deal, Mercury News
• Up in smoke?, Politico
  • Congress and Defense Department are considering a ban on tobacco products sales on US military bases. Currently, tobacco is discounted 5% at military exchanges, and 1 in 3 members say they started using tobacco products after they enlisted.
• Caremark to Change Extra Co-Pay at Pharmacies Selling Cigarettes, Wallstreet Journal Blog
• After cutting tobacco sales,  CVS is now pressuring other pharmacies to do this same, Washington Post Blog
• More Cities Raise Tobacco Age to 21, Wallstreet Journal

Know of a story that we missed? Email us, and we’ll be sure to include it in next month’s roundup!

Last updated October 11, 2023