Register here!

Research by Dr. Matthew Rossheim, which was considered during this policy discussion, found that some of the biggest retail stores in Texas are selling dangerous and often illegal cannabis products. These include items that break state and federal laws or have been deemed unsafe by the FDA, such as certain THC edibles and vapes that are too strong, imported edibles with banned ingredients, and unapproved drugs like tianeptine and kratom extracts. Some retailers are using risky sales tactics like giving out free samples, not checking IDs, and selling near schools—methods that increase the chances of young people using these products.

CBD and CBG products would remain legal under the bill, but would no longer be legal to be sold within 1000 feet of a school.

The bill also introduces new criminal penalties for possessing as well as selling intoxicating hemp products, which unfortunately could contribute to additional incarceration related to hemp as well as marijuana. Public health laws can support social justice, but they can also contribute to inequities. It is imperative for public health professionals and decision makers to consider the role of structural racism and discrimination in policy work and enforcement and to continually take meaningful steps toward equitable cannabis policy change.

Intoxicating “hemp” and THC products, sometimes referred to as derived psychoactive cannabis products (DPCPs), are currently available in nearly every state, including those states that have banned certain DPCPs like Delta-8 THC. This is due to a loophole created by the 2018 Farm Bill which allows for the continuous development and sale of new types of DPCPs. The Texas bill has the potential to significantly reduce the availability of harmful cannabis products for Texans, particularly youth.

Alaska
The Alliance
Recover Alaska

Arizona
Rise Up Glendale Coalition

Georgia
WestCare Georgia Coalition
Jenkins County Drug Free Coalition
AVPRIDE
One Johns Creek Coalition
Pathways2Life
Wayne County Recovery Coalition
Jeff Davis Substance Abuse Coalition
Share Health Southeast Georgia DFC Collaborative (Coffee, Jeff Davis, Wayne Counties)

Hawaii
Maui Coalition for Drug-Free Youth

Illinois
Stand Strong Coalition

Iowa
Jackson County Prevention Coalition

Maryland
Maryland Alcohol, Tobacco & Cannabis Network

Michigan
Alliance of Coalitions for Healthy Communities
SAFE, Northern Michigan
The Center For Urban Youth & Family Development
Michigan Coalition to Reduce Underage Drinking
Prevention Network
Mid-Michigan District Health Department

Missouri
ADAPT – Taney and Stone Counties
Smithville Community in Action

Nebraska
Project Extra Mile

Nevada
PACT Coalition for Safe and Drug-Free Communities

New York
The Brooklyn W.A.Y.
Brooklyn Y.A.S

Ohio
McKinley Hall Clark County Partners in Prevention

South Carolina
Behavioral Health Services Pickens

Texas
The Coalition
Texans for Safe and Drug-Free Youth

Wisconsin
Marathon County Health Department
Vilas County Youth Coalition
Cardiff
Focus on Community
Walworth County Health & Human Services, Division of Public Health
Jefferson County Public Health
REACH
Near West Side Partners

Counter Tools is partnering with researchers from the University of North Texas Health Science Center (UNTHSC) to offer the RAD collaborative. The purpose of the RAD Collaborative is to equip participants with local data to support pricing and other policy strategies that reduce alcohol-related harms. For more information, contact us at hello@countertools.org.

This month, Dr. Matthew Rossheim presented information on recent shifts in the U.S. cannabis markets and their implications, the harms from using derived psychoactive cannabis products, and regulations effective in mitigating these harms. Access the recording of Dr. Rossheim’s presentation and a link to his slides here.

In this webinar, the APRC will share their recently published Environmental Scan Toolkit, and Counter Tools will share why the point of sale matters for alcohol and your community. Register for the webinar here.

The momentum towards EVs in the U.S. has led to a rapidly growing share of the automobile market and a more than 40% increase in the number of publicly available charging ports. Increased corporate average fuel economy standards and the repeal of a 2019 law that prohibited state and local laws related to fuel economy standards have promoted innovation. Relatedly, between August and December 2022, state legislatures in California, Massachusetts, Washington, New York, and Oregon enacted new standards that require all new cars sold within each state’s borders to be emissions-free by 2035.

Taking a cross-country road trip from Los Angeles to New York City or Boston to Portland typically means several stops at gas stations along the interstate to stretch legs, purchase snacks, and fill up on gas. But the gas stations that fueled these trips are dealing with fewer gas-powered vehicles on roads, fierce competition with power companies for control of electric charging stations, and adapting new business strategies and infrastructure to keep pace with society’s transition towards EVs. 

So, what exactly does all of this have to do with tobacco control? 

Convenience stores make up the largest category of tobacco retailers in the U.S. Given that 80% of gas sold in the U.S. comes from convenience stores, and that the number of gas station outlets has declined for decades, the point-of-sale landscape may continue to dramatically shift in the ensuing decades with possible reductions in:

1. The density of tobacco retail outlets across the U.S.
2. The number of tobacco retail outlets near schools and parks, areas that youth frequent
3. The amount of tobacco marketing in communities

High retail availability of tobacco, along with heavy marketing at the point of sale, have been shown to prompt youth initiation, encourage impulse purchases, and interfere with quit attempts. Although the point-of-sale landscape may change in the coming years, tobacco control advocates can take action today to reduce tobacco retailer density through policy solutions such as licensing and zoning restrictions.

Ready to make progress toward reducing tobacco retailer density in your community? Counter Tools can help! Contact help@countertools.org for more information. 

Where we’ve been

Over the past decade, we’ve learned that the retail environment can make a drastic impact on the health of a community, particularly for disinvested and marginalized communities. Community-led data gathering and storytelling are powerful forces that can shape the policy landscape and address health inequities. The point of sale remains a critical entrypoint for harmful substances such as tobacco, alcohol, cannabis, sugar-sweetened beverages, and other unhealthy food to enter our community. 

Early partners 

Community and public health advocates have demonstrated that meaningful point-of-sale policy change is possible with grassroots community action, inclusive partnerships, and the right tools to leverage.

Supporting healthier places for all starts with building relationships and documenting the local problem. States such as Minnesota, Vermont, Nebraska, Florida, Indiana, Wisconsin, and South Carolina worked with Counter Tools to build a strategy for addressing tobacco prevention and control at the point of sale informed by local data and stories. 

Since 2012, the Minnesota Department of Health has partnered with Counter Tools to equip local public health advocates with the knowledge and data needed to educate stakeholders, build community awareness, and enact effective policy change. Minnesota’s notable successes in addressing tobacco at the point of sale are evidenced by:

• A statewide commitment to reduce the influence of the marketing and sale of tobacco products.
• More than 1,000 store audits conducted across the state each data collection year, providing an extensive amount of data to leverage for policy change.
• Significant local policy wins on Tobacco 21, flavored bans, and retailer proximity and density restrictions, such as Bloomington’s endgame policy with a retailer cap of zero to eventually sunset all tobacco licenses.
• Targeted support for localities to reach their policy goals through an extensive network of collaborative partners and technical assistance providers.

Read about one Minnesota city’s comprehensive tobacco prevention policy successes in 2019 here.

Early technology adopters

When Counter Tools launched in 2012, our original software tools, the Store Audit Center and Store Mapper, had recently been developed. We immediately launched our first mobile electronic data collection project in Minnesota and launched the Store Mapper for North Carolina.

In 2014, the Arizona Office of the Attorney General partnered with Counter Tools for the first tobacco enforcement project of its kind, breaking down data silos and encouraging multi-agency collaboration. We worked together to develop a new integrated tobacco enforcement platform, the Arizona Tobacco Enforcement System (AZ TES), bringing together GIS mapping, reporting, data collection planning and management, sampling, violation tracking, and retailer list management, as well as online and offline data collection. 

Our focus on fostering multi-agency data collaboration continued as the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and Maryland Department of Health partnered with Counter Tools to launch the Point of Sale Toolkit (POST) in 2016. In the years that followed, nearly a dozen states across the country have used POST to meet even more data collection needs, including store assessments and merchant education efforts.

A broader look at the retail environment

In 2013, Counter Tools began partnering with state and local health partners to assess and address more substances found in the retail environment that are known empirically to impact health outcomes. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment began mapping tobacco, alcohol, and cannabis retailers across the state. In subsequent years, the Wisconsin Tobacco Prevention and Control Program began assessing the retail landscape for alcohol and unhealthy food products in addition to tobacco products. The Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services partnered with Counter Tools to build an alcohol Mapper and a data dashboard to capture alcohol availability across Virginia. Many states continue to collect retail environment data on alcohol, cannabis, and other substances.

Where we’re headed

We envision a nation where healthy living is equitable across communities and every person has access to healthful choices. Our vision for place-based public health remains the same, but we are finding creative new ways to problem solve and learn with our partners how we can best achieve this vision together. Our stance on equity, diversity and inclusion guides how we, as an organization, aim to work alongside our partners and clients to address health disparities.

Continuing our core work

Counter Tools continues to support public health prevention and enforcement partners to address health disparities in their communities starting with the retail environment. 

We offer technical assistance, storytelling and data visualization, training, technology tools and services to support policy, systems, and environmental changes to the retail environment as it relates to tobacco, alcohol, and cannabis products, and other topics of interest such as healthy food, opioids, and healthy food.  We partner with organizations such as the Geographic Health Equity Alliance to facilitate learning collaboratives to support state tobacco control programs. Our Healthy Point of Sale webinar series offers insights into place-based public health strategies such as tobacco-related assurances of voluntary compliance. 

In partnership with the CDC Office on Smoking and Health, CounterTobacco.Org launched in 2011 as the first comprehensive resource for local, state, and federal organizations working to counteract commercial tobacco product sales and marketing at the point of sale. Today, the site offers evidence-based descriptions of the problem, policy solutions, advocacy materials, news updates, a podcast, and an image gallery exposing tobacco industry tactics at the point of sale. Partner projects such as fSTARS with Truth Initiative share data on how flavored tobacco products are marketed and sold in various communities and provide assessment resources and tools for communities to adapt for their own policy change goals. Developed in partnership with ChangeLab Solutions, the Tobacco Point-of-Sale Preemption Playbook equips tobacco prevention staff and their partners with the knowledge, context, and resources needed to understand how preemption influences their work.

Investing in new partnerships

While our Counter Tools team serves as a thought leader in mapping tobacco retailers and addressing place-based public health, we recognize the increasing impact of cannabis and alcohol in the retail environment on health, especially for made-vulnerable populations. We support client-partners in addressing health disparities through mapping and tracking alcohol outlet density and will be supporting health equity impact assessments in the new year.

Looking into the future, we’re improving the accessibility of our tools and building interactive data dashboards to meet the growing need for dynamic data tracking and storytelling. We’re continuing to facilitate spaces for peer-to-peer learning, including our new Cannabis Learning Collaborative that features participants from states across the country with recently adopted or pending adult use cannabis legislation. Our ongoing collaborative for states with tobacco point-of-sale preemption provides a platform for exchanging strategies and knowledge to support local control for tobacco control policy.

Thanks to our partners

At the core of our mission and goals is the partnerships that make it all possible. To our partners in place-based public health, thank you for collaboration and support of Counter Tools!

According to the CDC, there are over 375,000 tobacco retailers in the U.S. Areas with higher tobacco retailer density experience higher tobacco consumption rates, decreased quit attempts among adults who want to quit smoking, and higher youth initiation rates.

This webinar will provide a background into the tobacco retailer environment, what tools are available to assess the tobacco retailer environment, and how to engage with stakeholders in the tobacco retailer environment to reduce tobacco related disparities. Speakers will include representatives from NACCHO, Counter Tools, and the Chesterfield Community Service Board in Chesterfield, Virginia. Click here to register.

By law, the US Postal Service is prohibited from shipping alcohol under U.S. Legal Code 18 § 1716. But a new bill in Congress, the United States Postal Service Shipping Equity Act (H.R. 3287/S. 1663), could change that.  Enabling home delivery of alcohol by USPS would create new health risks and potential for underage drinking, and threaten existing alcohol safety measures. 

The Alcohol Action network has made it easy for you to take action on this important issue. After entering your name and address, the template can be personalized with additional information that may be meaningful to your unique congressional legislators. 

Download this fact-sheet to learn more about issues related to home delivery and USPS.

This is perhaps the biggest action the FDA could take to reduce health disparities. For decades, commercial mentholated tobacco products have escalated the harm caused by tobacco products. The tobacco industry has extensively targeted its marketing for menthol to African American communities, causing disproportionate harm to Black Americans. Menthol cigarettes alone have likely been responsible for more than 10 million extra smokers and 378,000 premature deaths.

While this news is a major victory for commercial tobacco prevention and control advocates, we know that state and local policy change is still as critical as ever. In their response to the FDA decision, Dr. Phil Gardiner and Carol McGruder from AATCLC shared the reality of the challenges that remain to protect Black and all lives from the devastating effects of mentholated tobacco products. It could still take years for the FDA to implement these product standards given the likelihood of a lengthy rulemaking process and delays from possible tobacco industry litigation. In Carol McGruder’s words, it’s important for all tobacco prevention and control advocates to “keep doing what we’ve been doing–enact local legislation, county legislation, state legislation to get mentholated products off the market” until the FDA exerts its regulatory power. 

While 274 localities across the United States have placed restrictions on flavored tobacco products since 2019, the majority of these flavor restrictions have excluded menthol. At least 88 localities have successfully placed restrictions on flavored tobacco products that include comprehensive bans on menthol products. Massachusetts led the way when it became the first state in November 2019 to prohibit the sale of all flavored tobacco products, including menthol cigarettes and e-cigarettes.

Menthol products are easier to start and harder to quit. Getting them and other flavors off the market will help reduce youth tobacco use initiation. While there remains work to do to remove flavors in all tobacco products, removing them from combustible products, the number one cause of preventable death and disease, is a huge step forward for public health, health equity, and the commercial tobacco endgame. We commend the advocates who have worked to advance health equity through policy change in tobacco prevention and control.