Educating merchants about tobacco sales laws has not produced sustained improvement in merchant compliance. Embedding merchant education in a communitywide public health campaign that raises awareness about youth access achieves better results, according to an unpublished study, but requires intensive efforts. Active Enforcement of Tobacco Sales Laws Changes Retailer Behavior . The failure of merchant education led to a focus on active enforcement of tobacco sales laws. It is more effective than merchant education.
More frequent inspections produce better results.
The Effect of Enforcement on Adolescent Tobacco Use Is Uncertain . Enforcement improves merchant compliance with tobacco sales laws, but whether this reduces young people's access to tobacco or tobacco use, as has been assumed, is not established. In several uncontrolled studies in single communities, teenage smoking was reduced after enforcement programs achieved very high levels of merchant compliance. More recent controlled studies have not replicated this finding. In one, merchant compliance increased more in three Massachusetts towns that enforced tobacco sales laws than in three matched controls, but enforcement was not associated with a fall in adolescents' self-reported access to tobacco products or tobacco use.