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In a statement released on March 4, 2019<\/a><\/u><\/span>, the FDA announced new actions taken by the agency to warn Walgreens and 15 other corporate-owned chains and franchise stores, including Walmart, with violation rates greater than 15%. Since then, we have seen several chains announce actions they plan to take to reduce youth access to tobacco:<\/p>\n It is important to acknowledge Walgreens, Rite-Aid, and Walmart for the steps they are taking to reduce youth access to tobacco products in their stores. Within states, cities, and counties that have not yet raised the minimum legal sales age to 21, these changes could start to make a difference. In 2014 when CVS\u00a0announced its decision to stop selling tobacco products<\/span><\/a><\/u><\/span>, <\/span>becoming the first retail pharmacy chain in the U.S. to take such action, it made an impact. Following the chain\u2019s removal of tobacco products from its stores, total cigarette purchases in states where CVS holds significant market share declined by 1%, and smokers who had previously purchased their cigarettes exclusively at CVS were up to twice as likely to stop buying cigarettes entirely.[<\/span>Polinkski et al, 2017<\/a><\/u><\/span>]. However, single corporations do not operate in a vacuum. In a move in the opposite direction, Family Dollar and Dollar General started selling tobacco in late 2012 and early 2013, which increased tobacco retailer density in some regions, even after CVS ended sales.[Hall et al, 2019<\/a><\/u><\/span>] A recent study conducted in six southeastern states found that this resulting increase in retailer density impeded progress in smoking reduction. [Hall et al, 2019<\/a><\/u><\/span>] This points to the need for local action to limit access to tobacco in other ways, such as by requiring a license to sell tobacco and setting a cap on the total number of tobacco retailer licenses allowed in a jurisdiction.<\/p>\n Walmart, Walgreens, and Rite-Aid are not the only retail chains with high violation rates. The FDA found<\/a><\/u><\/span> the following violation rates amongst all corporate-owned or franchised store inspections since the FDA\u2019s retailer compliance check program began in 2010:<\/p>\n The most egregious violators, while not pharmacies, have not yet publicly announced any steps to reduce those rates. Federal, state, and local governments can and should ensure that they are complying with the law.<\/p>\n While voluntary corporate action is welcome, governmental policy can have a bigger impact and a much bigger reach. State and local governments do not need to wait for corporations to do the right thing\u2014nor should they.<\/p>\n The FDA stated<\/a><\/u><\/span> that, \u201cIgnoring the law and then paying associated fines and penalties should not simply be viewed as a cost of doing business.\u201d We agree, and we know that tobacco retailer licensing<\/a><\/u><\/span> systems, particularly at the local level, allow better monitoring of retailer compliance and allow for a wider range of penalties, including having a retailer\u2019s license to sell tobacco products suspended or revoked for repeated violations.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s keep the pressure on corporations to do more AND let\u2019s keep the pressure on federal, state, and local government to take steps to make these and more comprehensive tobacco control policies a reality across all communities and for all retailers.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Walgreens Image credit: http:\/\/fortune.com\/fortune500\/walgreens-boots-alliance\/<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In a statement released on March 4, 2019, the FDA announced new actions taken by the agency to warn Walgreens and 15 other corporate-owned chains and franchise stores, including Walmart, with violation rates greater than 15%. Since then, we have seen several chains announce actions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":1921,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-policy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/countertools.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/countertools.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/countertools.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/countertools.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/countertools.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/countertools.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/countertools.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/countertools.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/countertools.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/countertools.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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