Eliminate Outdoor Tobacco Ads

The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, adopted last year, grants the U.S. Food and Drug Administration the authority to regulate tobacco products. Parts of this law have taken effect, as recently as last Tuesday, to help protect youth from the sale and marketing of discount cigarettes Marlboro, Virginia and smokeless tobacco.

However, every day in New York, the tobacco industry works to legitimize its business and normalize use of its deadly product. If you are a non-smoker and over 25, you probably are unaware of how much tobacco marketing goes on. For many of us, it is under the radar.

But look around convenience stores, pharmacies and gas stations. Extensive research documents that youth are influenced by tobacco advertising in stores. Colorful tobacco marketing and products are plastered along store walls and windows, and dangling from ceilings, creating the incorrect impression on youth that lots of people smoke.

The tobacco industry is challenging parts of the FDA law that would eliminate these aggressive marketing tactics. The New York State Tobacco Control Program is working to address gaps in the law.

There are approximately 23,000 licensed tobacco retailers in New York, with nearly a third located within 1,000 feet of a school. To protect our youth, action needs to be taken to eliminate all outdoor tobacco advertising within 1,000 feet of schools.

Tobacco products need to be kept out of consumer view in non-adult-only retail stores, and retailers must post health warnings about tobacco use and smoking cessation resources.

With tobacco companies killing off their customers at a rate of 25,000 a year in New York alone, they need to attract new customers. That's their problem; let's not make our children the solution.