State and Federal Compliance With the Synar Amendment

Abstract

States that demonstrated remarkable progress were balanced by states with worsening performance; as a whole there was no significant national progress toward reducing the availability of tobacco to youths. This failure can be attributed to inadequate resources devoted to enforcement and reliance on merchant education in lieu of bona fide law enforcement.

Enforcement of underage sales laws as a predictor of daily smoking among adolescents – a national study

“…Inaccuracy in the measurement of compliance results in misclassification of exposure status, increasing the risk of failing to detect a real effect. Thus, the fact that compliance checks conducted by decoys are a poor measure of the ability of real underage smokers to purchase tobacco,[ 49 ] that states used different aged youth and different protocols to measure compliance, that states have used 14 different protocol procedures that might bias their surveys to produce artificially high compliance rates,[ 50 ] and that statewide compliance rates mask substantial variability in the compliance rates experienced by youths living in different communities within a state, all worked to obscure the association between true compliance and youth smoking.…”

“…The surveys include a representative statewide sample of tobacco retailers and produce a compliance rate which indicates the percentage of merchants in compliance (with a 95% confidence interval of no more than +/- 3%). State protocols vary in aspects that influence the measured rate of compliance such as the age of the youths and whether they offer proof of age [ 36 - 38 ]. The first year in which all states collected compliance data was 1997 [ 39 ].…”

Evidence-Based Point-of-Sale Policies to Reduce Youth Tobacco Use in North Carolina

“…Although this law applies to all retailers in the United States, complementary state and local laws are important for policy implementation and enforcement [6]. Compliance with T21 is necessary for states to receive "Synar funding" from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration [7]. North Carolina risks losing this federal funding for substance abuse prevention, treatment, and recovery efforts if 20% or more of randomly sampled tobacco retailers are found to be in violation of the T21 law [7].…”

“…Compliance with T21 is necessary for states to receive "Synar funding" from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration [7]. North Carolina risks losing this federal funding for substance abuse prevention, treatment, and recovery efforts if 20% or more of randomly sampled tobacco retailers are found to be in violation of the T21 law [7]. Complementing the federal law, state-level T21 policies provide state agencies with greater control over enforcement activities to keep states in compliance with Synar provisions [7].…”

“…State-level policies provide authority for enforcement of the federal T21 law, which is tied to federal funding [6,7].…”