MINNEAPOLIS -- Over the past five years, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has conducted more than 400,000 retail compliance inspections in all fifty states, and retailers have passed the compliance inspections approximately 95% of the time. This requirement to conduct retail inspections is a part of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which Congress passed in 2009 that authorized the FDA to regulate tobacco products.
According to the FDA’s website, the agency has funded contracts to conduct retail compliance checks with state agencies or private firms in all 50 states. The total dollar amount of these funded contracts is $137,196,388. For a list of the state agencies and private companies that are currently conducting these compliance checks in each of these states, click here.
As a refresher, retailers are required to comply with the following FDA tobacco regulations, which also form the basis for FDA retail compliance inspections:
- Retailers are prohibited from selling cigarettes, roll-your-own cigarette tobacco and smokeless tobacco products to any person younger than 18 years of age. (Note: Four states including Alabama, Alaska, New Jersey and Utah have a minimum legal age of 19 and some cities and towns have a legal age of 19 or 21).
- Retailers are required to verify a tobacco purchaser’s age for all individuals under the age of 27 by photographic identification that contains the person’s date of birth. (Note: Retailers are required to request photographic identification from a customer under the age of 27 each time that customer is purchasing cigarettes, roll-your-own tobacco, or smokeless tobacco products even if store employees know that the customer is of legal age to purchase tobacco products).
- Retailers can sell cigarettes, roll-your-own tobacco, and smokeless tobacco only in a direct, face- to-face exchange between a store clerk and the customer.
- Retailers are not allowed to sell cigarettes, roll-your-own tobacco, or smokeless tobacco products in self-service displays, except in stores where underage individuals are not present, or permitted to enter, at any time.
- Retailers are not allowed to give away free samples of cigarettes, roll-your-own tobacco, or smokeless tobacco products. However, a retailer, manufacturer or distributor may distribute free samples of smokeless tobacco in a “qualified adult-only facility”.
- As a result of a court ruling issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, the FDA is not enforcing the tobacco regulation prohibiting a manufacturer, distributor or retailer from offering a gift or other item to a customer purchasing cigarettes, roll-your-own tobacco, or smokeless tobacco products or to a customer redeeming credits, proofs of purchase, or coupons for a free gift. (Note that manufacturers, and distributors of imported products, are not allowed to market, license, distribute or sell non-tobacco items such as hats and t-shirts that contain the brand name, logo, symbol, motto, or pattern of colors for any brand of cigarettes, roll-your-own tobacco, or smokeless tobacco products.)
- Retailers cannot open any cigarette, roll-your-own tobacco or smokeless tobacco package to sell individual cigarettes, any number of cigarettes less than 20, or any quantity of cigarette tobacco or smokeless tobacco that is smaller than the smallest package distributed by the manufacturer.
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