Explore the vast range of titles available.

Nearly half of the 17 studies in this e-issue characterise the marketing environment,16 17 the built environment18–21 or both.6 7

Evidence from retail audits refutes the industry's claims that plain packaging harms retail businesses by increasing time to retrieve packs 10 and by increasing the availability of illicit tobacco at the point of sale. 11 Another study highlights concerns about industry-funded research that misused smoking prevalence data to conclude that plain packaging did not reduce smoking. 9 Two studies describe the industry's use of colours, colour terms and pack size to microsegment the consumer market before and after plain packaging, highlighting important considerations for future regulation. 12 13 In addition, a study with users of roll-your-own tobacco suggests that the impact of plain packaging on brand attachment and user satisfaction could extend to tobacco products other than factory-made cigarettes. 14 In a message-testing experiment with US young-adult smokers, plain packaging enhances the impact of graphic imagery when combined with gain-framed messages about the benefits of quitting. 15 Several studies address the relative impact of warning labels that do not meet minimum international standards, 16-18 and make recommendations for novel content and locations for warning statements. 19 20 In a multicountry survey, pictorial warnings improve smokers' awareness of quitlines and cessation websites, moreso when the information appeared on both the front and back panels. 18 This issue includes the first pictorial warning about the economic impact of smoking which tested well with adolescents and young adults in Lebanon, 19 and would likely resonate with other target audiences, particularly low-income smokers.

Background According to the National Alcohol Beverage Control Association, twelve states in the United States (U.S.) have government retail monopolies on spirits/liquor sales. With a new federal minimum legal sales age for tobacco (raised from 18 to 21, the minimum legal sales age for alcohol), we examine possible unintended consequences of a hypothetical policy change restricting retail tobacco sales to state-run spirits/liquor stores in alcohol control states, which has been proposed as a tobacco endgame strategy. Methods We used cross-sectional survey data from 14,821 randomly-selected adults ages 21 and older who responded to the 2015 or 2020 U.S. National Alcohol Survey (51.8% female; 65.8% identified as non-Hispanic White, 12.4% as Black or African American, 14.2% as Hispanic or Latinx; 34.0% had a low level of education), including 2,274 respondents (18.9%) residing in one of the alcohol control states (representing 42.2 million (M) adults ages 21+). We estimated associations between tobacco measures (lifetime smoking status, lifetime daily smoking, past-year daily smoking) and alcohol measures (drinking status, beverage choices, lifetime alcohol use disorder (AUD) status, recovery status) overall and for specific subgroups. Results In control states, 55.1% of people who smoked daily in the past year also reported lifetime AUD, including an estimated 3.56 M adults ages 21 + who reported prior (but not current) AUD. The association of daily smoking with lifetime AUD was stronger among those with low education compared to those with higher education. Further, 58.8% of people in recovery from an alcohol and/or drug problem (1.49 M adults ages 21+) smoked daily, and this was more marked among women than men in control states. Conclusion There could be negative consequences of an endgame strategy to restructure tobacco retail sales, including increased risk for relapse to drinking among people who smoke daily, especially among women and people with low levels of education. Strategies to mitigate unintended harms would be needed if such a policy were implemented.

An increasing number of countries have set tobacco endgame goals that target dramatic reductions in smoking prevalence. To achieve those targets and promote health equity, policies are needed to reduce the retail supply and visibility of tobacco products. Focusing on retailer reduction strategies and tobacco display bans, this special communication reviews solution-oriented research about the retail environment. It highlights examples of policy implementation and identifies data needs and research gaps for designing and evaluating retail policies to promote population health equitably.

ObjectiveTo describe the scope of published literature about tobacco-related policy discussions from social media data and discuss implications for tobacco control policy and future research.Data sourcesPubMed, Medline, CINAHL and Web of Science were searched on 20 November 2023, using search terms for social media, tobacco, and policy. The search was limited from 2005 to 2023.Study selectionAfter removing duplicates, 2 authors reviewed 1118 articles. Those found to be irrelevant based on title (1078) and abstract (18) review were removed.Data extractionData included study descriptions (eg, policy discussed, social media platform and number of posts), study characteristics (eg, methodology, sentiment analysis (propolicy, antipolicy, neutral policy and unclear policy)), and major and additional findings.Data synthesisOf the 22 articles, most examined discussions about USA (n=18) federal regulations (n=17) via human annotation (n=18), using Twitter (X; n=20). Of the 14 papers that discussed sentiment, 4 collected data at different time points; frequency of positive posts typically decreased after policy announcements. Policies discussed in articles included flavour restrictions; USA ban of Puff Bar; Tobacco 21; tobacco taxes; e-cigarette regulation; UK’s standardised packaging; product authorisation; regulating e-cigarettes as a medical product; WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control regulatory actions; Australia’s import restrictions on vaping products and smoke-free and tobacco-free college campus policies.ConclusionsSocial media data can be leveraged to examine timely discourse regarding tobacco control policies. Identified methods of circumventing proposed tobacco control laws and enforcement challenges should be considered by regulatory agencies to close policy loopholes and inform implementation practices.

This study characterizes the retail environment for Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS) near public universities in California, assesses marketing in the first random sample of ENDS retailers, and compares ENDS retailer density and retail marketing near campuses with and without tobacco-free policies. Two data sources were used to construct a sampling frame of possible ENDS retailers, which were mapped within 1 to 4 miles of the 33 University of California and California State University campuses. To assess retailer density, a telephone survey of possible ENDS retailers (n=1186) determined which sold e-cigarettes or e-liquids (completion rate=72.9%). To assess retail marketing, trained data collectors completed observations in a random sample (n=438, M=13.3 stores per campus, SD=11.2) in fall 2015. In a telephone survey, 59.1% of retailers reported selling e-cigarettes or e-liquids. Half of the campuses had 10 or more ENDS retailers nearby. Most ENDS retailers were convenience stores (42.5%), and more were head shops (8.4%) than smoke shops (6.8%) or vape shops (6.2%). Nearly half (43.6%) of ENDS retailers sold products marketed as zero-nicotine and 13.9% sold NRT. ENDS advertising was visible in 72.1% and on the exterior of 28.1% of retailers. However, the presence of exterior advertising for ENDS was significantly lower near campuses with established tobacco-free policies than campuses with recent or no tobacco-free policies (OR=0.45, 95% CI=0.22, 0.94). The large number of tobacco retailers that sell ENDS near colleges suggests a need for better monitoring and regulations of ENDS availability and marketing. The widespread availability of zero-nicotine products suggests a need to examine whether nicotine-free products are as advertised and safe to use. Longitudinal research is needed to understand how retail marketing for ENDS responds to change in tobacco-free policies at nearby campuses.

BackgroundConducting routine inspections for compliance with age-of-sale laws is essential to reducing underage access to tobacco. We seek to develop a multilevel propensity score model (PSM) to predict retail violation of sales to minors (RVSM).MethodsThe Food and Drug Administration compliance check of tobacco retailers with minor-involved inspections from 2015 to 2019 (n=683 741) was linked with multilevel data for demographics and policies. Generalised estimating equation was used to develop the PSM using 2015–2016 data to predict the 2017 RVSM. The prediction accuracy of the PSM was validated by contrasting PSM deciles against 2018–2019 actual violation data.ResultsIn 2017, 44.3% of 26 150 zip codes with ≥1 tobacco retailer had 0 FDA underage sales inspections, 11.0% had 1 inspection, 13.5% had 2–3, 15.3% had 4–9, and 15.9% had 10 or more. The likelihood of having an RVSM in 2017 was higher in zip codes with a lower number of inspections (adjusted OR (aOR)=0.988, 95% CI (0.987 to 0.990)) and penalties (aOR=0.97, 95% CI (0.95 to 0.99)) and a higher number of violations (aOR=1.07, 95% CI (1.06 to 1.08)) in the previous 2 years. Urbanicity, socioeconomic status, smoking prevalence and tobacco control policies at multilevels also predicted retail violations. Prediction accuracy was validated with zip codes with the highest 10% of the PSM 3.4 times more likely to have retail violations in 2019 than zip codes in the bottom decile.ConclusionThe multilevel PSM predicts the RVSM with a good rank order of retail violations. The model-based approach can be used to identify hot spots of retail violations and improve the sampling plan for future inspections.

Nicotine pouches are gaining popularity, yet their marketing is understudied. Using Numerator advertising data from January 2019 to September 2021 regarding three popular brands of nicotine pouch in the USA-Zyn (by Swedish Match, introduced in the USA in July 2016), On! (Altria, August 2016) and Velo (RJ Reynolds, July 2019)-we examined (1) general advertising characteristics (eg, media type, year); (2) ad content (ie, headlines and imagery themes); (3) prominent media channels (ie, specific websites, magazines, etc); and (4) ad expenditures. There were 286 unique ads (Zyn: 44.4%; On!: 2.8%; Velo: 52.8%), 119 143 occurrences (Zyn: 3.5%; On!: 0.5%; Velo: 96.0%) and $24 774 650 total expenditures (Zyn: 4.7%; On!: 0.6%; Velo: 94.7%). The greatest proportion of ad occurrences and expenditures were accounted for by radio (75.9% and 28.2%, respectively) and television (16.2% and 56.5%), followed by mobile (0.5% and 7.2%) and online display (6.7% and 3.6%). Across ad occurrences and expenditures, prominent headline themes included 'freedom' (26.0% and 17.1%, respectively), 'brand' (9.6% and 18.6%) and 'flavour' (16.4% and 7.6%); images mainly featured the product alone (61.4% and 56.1%), text (16.2% and 24.6%) or men (8.7% and 8.6%); and prominent channel themes were entertainment (34.7% and 37.3%), news/weather (14.3% and 21.7%), business/finance (12.9% and 9.0%) and sports (9.5% and 1.0%). Zyn and On! prioritised online display and print; Velo prioritised radio and television. Zyn's and Velo's headlines focused on 'freedom', with Zyn also emphasising 'brand' and Velo 'innovation'; On!'s headlines emphasised 'flavour'. Regulatory efforts must be informed by surveillance of nicotine pouch marketing and impacts on consumer subgroups (eg, young people).