Maintenance of Community Change: Enforcing Youth Access to Tobacco Laws

• NCJ Number: 208235
• Journal: Journal of Drug Education Volume: 34 Issue: 2 Dated: 2004 Pages: 105-119
• Author(s): Leonard A. Jason; Steven B. Pokorny; Charlotte Kunz; Monica Adams
• Date Published: 2004
• Length: 15 pages
• Grant Number(s): CA80288
• Sponsoring Agency: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; National Ctr on Minority Health and Health Disparities
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Program/Project Description
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study examined the readiness of 11 towns in northern and central Illinois to participate in the Youth Tobacco Access Project, which is designed to reduce youth access to commercial outlets for tobacco products by monitoring and fining merchants to deter them from selling these products to minors.

Abstract

The project first identified the retailers in each town that sold tobacco products. Liaisons from the police departments of each town recruited youth to be field agents for attempts to purchase tobacco products at the retail stores. A protocol for these purchase attempts was developed. If a merchant sold the minor tobacco, a fine was levied at $50-$100 for the first offense and a 1-day suspension of the license to sell cigarette products plus a higher fine for a second offense. Repeated violations resulted in higher fines and longer periods of license suspensions. Prior to implementing the enforcement project, a community's level of readiness to change or ability to implement interventions were assessed. Project strategies varied according to each community's readiness to implement the program. The police agency's readiness to participate in the program was measured by the police agency's knowledge of the problem, leadership, resources, community efforts, knowledge of efforts, town climate, and police department climate. Two independent raters rated each town on the sales enforcement scale. For 3 years following the end of the intervention, enforcement was measured by assessing the number of compliance checks made by the police departments each year. The findings showed that those communities that had made the largest changes in community readiness to enforce the relevant laws during the 3-year intervention were most likely to continue enforcement activities into the follow-up period. This paper advises that there is a need to better understand how interventions to reduce minors' access to tobacco products can be maintained over time. 1 figure, 11 references, and appended chart of behavioral measures for illegal tobacco sales to minors/sales enforcement