The federal initiative to halt the sale of tobacco to children—the Synar Amendment, 1992–2000: lessons learned

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The Synar Amendment was enacted by the US Congress in 1992 to require states and territories to establish and enforce laws prohibiting the sale of tobacco to minors. OBJECTIVE: To describe state and federal efforts to comply with the Synar mandate. METHODS: State and federal actions were examined for the eight years following enactment. DATA SOURCES: Federal documents from 1992-2003, annual block grant applications from 59 states and territories describing activities during federal fiscal years 1995-2000. MEASURES: Whether applicants made a good faith effort to comply by enacting a law, enforcing it with inspections and penalties, conducting a valid survey and meeting violation rate targets set by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). RESULTS: Between 1996 and 2000, 26 states had made a good faith effort to comply with Synar every year. In 2000, 57 jurisdictions (excluding Maryland and Montana) had established laws without loopholes, 57 conducted a valid survey, and 54 actively enforced their laws. By 2002, violation rates had dropped substantially everywhere but Alaska and a few small territories. No state reached the violation rate goal of 20% without penalising violators. CONCLUSIONS: The Synar Amendment has resulted in the universal adoption of laws prohibiting tobacco sales to minors and almost universal enforcement of those laws, resulting in dramatically reduced violation rates. Implementation was slowed significantly by a lack of good faith effort in many states and by DHHS\u27s decision not to require states to enforce their laws by penalising lawbreakers

Cigarette purchase and accessibility among children in a developing country. A study among in-school youth in Lagos state, Nigeria.

“…These findings are particularly important, as Nigeria has recently passed the Nigeria Tobacco Control Bill (NTCB) banning the sale of cigarettes to people less than 18 years. Other countries like Italy, United states and New Zealand, have also reported challenges with implementing laws banning sales to minors even where they exist [19][20][21][22] . It behoves on the Nigerian government to put in place measures that will ensure that these laws are not merely enacted but appropriately enforced, otherwise the laws may not have the desired effects of protecting youth from the dangers of tobacco use.…”

Researching State Tobacco Policymaking: Issues, Data Sources, and Methods

“…Another robust area of research has been in state youth access enforcement policies (Alciati et al 1998;Andersen, Begay, and Lawson 2003;Bal et al 2001;Chriqui et al 2002a;Cummings et al 2002;DiFranza and Dussault 2005;Givel and Glantz 2004-5;Gottlieb et al 2003;Landman, Ling, and Glantz 2002;Thomson et al 2004b), but these studies' findings are sharply divided as to the efficacy of such programs. Some researchers suggest that youth access enforcement programs have been quite effective in reducing youth tobacco use (DiFranza and Dussault 2005), while others argue the opposite (Fichtenberg and Glantz 2002).…”

“…Some researchers suggest that youth access enforcement programs have been quite effective in reducing youth tobacco use (DiFranza and Dussault 2005), while others argue the opposite (Fichtenberg and Glantz 2002). Meanwhile, a related line of research has focused on tobacco industry support for state preemption of strong local youth access enforcement laws and the public health implications of these changes (Alciati et al 1998;Givel 2005).…”

“…Another recent line of research on state tobacco policy examines policy instruments designed to address the reduction of tobacco use, including tobacco excise taxes, clean indoor air legislation, youth access enforcement efforts, tobacco industry related tort and product liability reform efforts, the listing of tobacco as a cause of death on death certificates, state smoking employment discrimination laws, tobacco sampling, promotion and advertising restriction policies, fire-safe cigarette legislation, and state anti-tobacco education efforts (Chaloupka et al 2002;Licari and Meier 1997;Chriqui et al 2002b;Dearlove and Glantz 2002;DiFranza and Dussault 2005;Landman, Ling, and Glantz 2005;Givel and Glantz 2000a;Daynard, Howard, and Wilking 2004;Thomas, Hedberg, and Fleming 2001;Gunja et al 2002). These studies have used both individual state case studies and comparisons among states in exploring the politics and effectiveness of these policy instruments.…”

Single Cigarette Sales: State Differences in FDA Advertising and Labeling Violations, 2014, United States

“…Previous research shows wide variation in state implementation of (and resistance to) federal inspection programs. 30,31 We suggest that it is therefore reasonable to hypothesize that, based on FDA inspections data presented in this paper, similar variation is occurring in FDA's current inspections program. This notion is further supported by our results showing that certain characteristics, which we posited to be associated with single cigarette sales, were not predictive of violations according to warning letters sent by the FDA inspections programs.…”