Anti-Tobacco Groups Demonize Convenience Stores

NACS counters that the convenience stores sell legal products in a lawful way, and that the report is "rife with nonsensical reasoning."

March 07, 2012

ALEXANDRIA, VA - A supposed "new" report from Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and several affiliated groups claims that convenience stores are complicit in enticing underage tobacco use, among other claims. But, NACS spokesman Jeff Lenard countered, there is more - actually less - than meets the eye in the report.

"Calling it a 'new report?? is a stretch with both words, because the supposed findings aren??t new and they aren??t findings," he said. "What is true, and omitted from this report, is that convenience stores sell legal products in a lawful way, and that is true with all products."

The report, released earlier this week with an accompanying press release, says that tobacco companies have enlisted convenience stores as their most important partners in marketing tobacco products and fighting policies that reduce tobacco use, thereby enticing kids to use tobacco and harming the nation??s health. The American Heart Association and Counter Tobacco joined with the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids in releasing the report.

"If you look at the footnotes, it??s pretty clear that this is a cobbled-together collection of recycled golden oldies that goes back, in some cases, more than 30 years. Even setting that aside, the presumptions simply do not add up," said Lenard.

The press release sent by Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids said that "as other forms of tobacco marketing have been restricted, (t)obacco companies pay stores billions to ensure that cigarettes and other tobacco products are advertised heavily, displayed prominently and priced cheaply to appeal to both kids and current tobacco users."

"Tobacco users are very brand loyal and will go somewhere else if you don??t have their specific brand. In-store advertising is designed to tell adults who smoke that you have their product. It is a real stretch to think that anyone would come in a store as a non-smoker and leave as a smoker because of a marketing display," said Lenard.

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free also claims that stores have not been hurt by higher tobacco taxes because the overall store count increased at a time when tobacco taxes increased. "Convenience stores have fought cigarette tax increases despite ?? recent studies finding that cigarette tax hikes had little effect on the number of convenience stores," noted the press release.

"The report is rife with nonsensical reasoning," he continued. "To suggest that tobacco taxes don??t hurt sales because our store count increased at the same time tobacco taxes increased is truly laughable," said Lenard.

The report also said that teenagers are especially susceptible to in-store marketing because "more than two-thirds of teenagers visit a convenience store at least once a week."

"The one thing the report gets right is that teenagers visit our stores," said Lenard. "But do you know who else does? Everybody! We conduct 160 million transactions per day, and every day we successfully conduct more age-restricted transactions that any other channel."

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