Experimental evaluation of minors' access to tobacco
Creators: name: University Of California Office Of The President
Publisher: name: University of California Office of the President
publisherIdentifier: https://ror.org/00dmfq477
publisherIdentifierScheme: ROR
Year: 2024

description: In the 1980's and early 1990's, children ages 12-17 were successful at purchasing cigarettes 60-90% of the time and purchased 1 billion pack of cigarettes each year despite laws prohibiting such sales. In response, the federal Synar Regulation and the California STAKE Act (California’s implementation of Synar) were passed in 1994. These require California to enforce youth access laws and to reduce youth access to tobacco to 20% or lose a portion of its federal drug abuse funds. The California Department of Health Services Tobacco Control Section (TCS) and Food &amp; Drug Branch (FDB) enforce the STAKE Act, conduct “sting operations” with youth who attempt to purchase cigarettes, and assess fines against merchants who sell in order to reduce youth access to the required 20%. Statewide data collected by TCS-FDB indicate that these efforts have been successful: Minors’s access to tobacco in the state has steadily declined from 60-90% pre-STAKE Act, to 37% (1995), to 21.7% (1997), to 13.1% (1998). Simultaneously however, youth report that it is still easy to buy cigarettes despite TCS data indicating that it is not; youth report that their access is 60% or higher even though TCS data indicate that it is only 13%; youth smoking has not decreased (and indeed, has increased among minorities) despite the (ostensible) decrease in their access; and youth still purchase 1 billion packs of cigarettes each year. How do we explain these contradictory findings? 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Our two, small pilot studies suggest that methodology is the explanation: In state and national studies of youth access, youth are sent to stores where no one knows them to purchase cigarettes only (Research Purchase Protocol). But real-world youth report that they purposefully select stores where they are recognized by clerks (Familiarity Purchase Protocol) as “good customers” who buy other items in addition to cigarettes (Foot-in-the-Door Purchase Protocol). In our pilot studies, youth who appeared once to request cigarettes (Research Purchase Protocol) had access rates of 6-11%, but those who appeared repeatedly at the same store to purchase cigarettes (Familiarity), and those who bought other items that act as a foot-in-the-tobacco door (Foot-in-the-Door) had access rates as high as 63%. Thus, how researchers assess youth’s ability to purchase cigarettes bears little resemblance to how youth in the real world actually do so, and hence, youth in studies have low access but those in the real world may continue to have high access. California youth’s rate of access to tobacco therefore remains unknown. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 The purpose of the proposed studies is to acquire accurate data on youth access to tobacco in the state by having youth systematically attempt to purchase cigarettes using three purchase protocols: the standard research protocol used by TCS-FDB, and the strategies that real-world youth say that they use to obtain cigarettes (Familiarity and the Foot-in-the-Door). These purchase attempts will be made by White, Black, Latino, and Asian youth in White, Black, Latino, and Asian communities. We hypothesize that minors’s access when using real-world youth’s purchase-strategies will be high (50-90%) and will significantly exceed their access when using the standard research purchase-protocol (10-20%). We also hypothesize that access will be higher for minority youth than for White youth, and in minority communities than in White ones. Such findings would mean that how the state and nation assess minors’ access to tobacco yields false-low access rates; that minors’ access in California remains high and unchanged; that California is in violation of Synar and STAKE; and that primary prevention efforts to reduce youth access are still badly needed.