Tobacco sold in Minnesota must now be behind store counters rather than on display.
MINNEAPOLIS, MN - As of this past Sunday, Minnesota law requires convenience stores and other tobacco retailers to keep tobacco products behind the counter rather than in displays that customers can directly access, the Star Tribune reports. It also expands the definition of tobacco products (which therefore cannot be sold to minors) to include items that can be "chewed, smoked, absorbed, dissolved, inhaled, snorted, sniffed or ingested by any other means.''
The law is intended to reduce teen smoking by restricting their access to tobacco and tobacco-related products that are priced low and marketed to teens.
"It's not your grandfather's cigarettes anymore," said Kerri Gordon, a spokesperson for Clear Way Minnesota, a quit-smoking organization. "Today's tobacco industry is moving heavily into smokeless and spitless products. We're seeing almost edible tobacco."
While the percent of Minnesota high school students who smoke has dropped from more than 36 percent in 1997 to less than 20 percent in 2009, the share of teens that use smokeless tobacco has remained firm at roughly nine percent over the same period.
Despite the legislation, most Minnesota convenience stores already place all tobacco products behind their counters to deter underage smoking, said Lance Klatt of the Minnesota Service Station and Convenience Store Association, which supported the legislation.
"The [store operators] out there, they don't like promoting tobacco near the candy area," he said. "We want to protect our youth as well."
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