U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Company agrees that kids should not use tobacco products, and that tobacco products should be marketed in a responsible manner to adult tobacco consumers. That is why we support tough but reasonable legislation to help reduce underage access to the entire tobacco category.
At the state level, we support legislation that would:
- Prohibit anyone from purchasing tobacco products for, or distributing tobacco products to, a minor;
- Prohibit the purchase or possession of tobacco products by minors or the use of false identification by a minor during an attempt to purchase tobacco products;
- Require all tobacco products purchases to be clerk-assisted or conducted in an otherwise non-self service environment to include the restriction of vending machine sales of tobacco products;
- Penalize clerks and retailers for selling tobacco products to a minor, but allowing for an affirmative defense for those employers who have an education and training program in place in order to prevent such sales;
- Require every individual store or retail establishment engaged in the sale of tobacco products to have a license;
- Require minimum-age-to-purchase signage at retail stores and require valid proof of age for all tobacco product purchases; and,
- Require a single designated agency to collect and report data about youth access prevention enforcement activities at the state level.
We recognize that some people believe that youth tobacco prevention efforts should involve bans or restrictions on certain flavors of smokeless tobacco. We believe these approaches can be misguided if they fail to take into account the history of our brands, the preferences of adult smokeless tobacco consumers, and the way in which we market our products to adult smokeless tobacco consumers. We look for opportunities to work with elected officials to support reasonable legislation to help reduce youth tobacco use and we support sensible efforts such as making all tobacco product sales non-self service. In addition to supporting legislative efforts to reduce underage tobacco access, USSTC supports youth access and youth tobacco prevention in several other ways.
