Altria Group’s tobacco companies support programs that help reduce underage tobacco use and take a number of steps designed to limit reach of their brands and marketing materials to unintended audiences.
POSITIVE YOUTH DEVELOPMENT GRANTS
Altria’s tobacco companies provide grants to youth-serving organizations to help kids develop the confidence and skills they need to avoid risky behaviors, such as tobacco use.
These include grants to support after-school initiatives through Boys & Girls Clubs of America, mentoring programs offered by Big Brothers Big Sisters of America and programming on healthy behaviors from the National 4-H Council – just a few examples of the investments our companies have made in positive youth development programs. Our companies also support adolescent tobacco cessation programs.
RESOURCES FOR PARENTS
Research shows that parents can influence a child’s decision not to smoke or use tobacco products. To help and encourage parents to talk effectively with their kids about not using tobacco products and avoiding other risky behaviors, Altria’s tobacco companies have provided funding to the Search Institute to develop ParentFurtherSM – an online resource for parents and other caring adults. This practical, user-friendly resource encourages proactive parenting with everyday tips and tools for a wide range of subjects, including underage tobacco use.
UNDERAGE RETAIL ACCESS PREVENTION
Philip Morris USA, U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Company and John Middleton support programs and legislative efforts that help prevent underage access to tobacco products. For example, these companies support the We Card® program. We Card works with retailers to prevent tobacco sales to underage purchasers.
TOBACCO COMPANY BUSINESS PRACTICES
In addition to complying with legal and regulatory requirements, our tobacco companies follow Altria’s Standards for Underage Tobacco Prevention.
As a result, these companies:
- focus their marketing efforts on direct communications, websites and other activities that adhere to self-imposed minimum-age requirements and age-verification procedures, and at retail where adult tobacco consumers make their purchasing decisions;
- offer retail programs with requirements and financial incentives for participating retailers to sell our companies’ products only in clerk-assisted transactions;
- educate sales and marketing employees on ways they can help prevent underage tobacco access and use;
- support the federal law that requires all cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products to be merchandised in a clerk-assisted manner. Altria’s tobacco companies also support state-level youth access prevention legislation. In addition, Middleton requires retailers participating in its trade programs to merchandise cigar products in a non-self-service manner even in those states where it is not required by law; and
- do not pay for or endorse any product placement. Our tobacco companies decline all requests to use, display or even reference their companies’ brands in movies, television shows or other public entertainment media.
