The FDA closed out the year not with a regulatory announcement but with the launch of a program aimed at assisting tobacco retailers in complying with age-verification requirements. Titled “This Is Our Watch,” the national program was developed based on retailer and store employee feedback from FDA interviews.
Shipped free to retailers and also available online, materials include a poster to display in stores, flyers containing regulation information on the different kinds of tobacco products, a flip calendar to assist retailers in verifying legal age, an age-verification checklist and various store stickers to remind customers that ID is required to purchase tobacco.
To supplement the program, the FDA has also developed an age-calculator app that allows employees to easily check whether a customer is old enough to purchase tobacco by scanning their driver’s license. The app can be downloaded to Apple or Android smartphones.