On May 31, we recognized World No Tobacco Day, and this year it focused on urging governments to shield young people from predatory tobacco marketing tactics.
The Rutgers Institute for Nicotine and Tobacco Studies has a call to action for New Jersey lawmakers: Based on our research, New Jersey is failing its young people — and we need to bolster regulation and enforcement.
State legislators deserve credit for passing innovative tobacco laws in recent years to protect young people. New Jersey was among the earliest states to raise the minimum age of sale to 21 for tobacco and e-cigarettes, contributing to a trend that spread nationwide. New Jersey also banned the sale of flavored e-cigarettes.
These laws have potential but are undermined by two problems. First, laws are only effective if they are supported by sensible enforcement and resources to execute enforcement. Second, penalties should be serious enough to deter noncompliance. The potential impact of the state’s ban on flavored e-cigarettes, which went into effect in April 2020, has been undermined by inadequate enforcement. Despite the state law, we found the availability of flavored e-cigarettes returned to pre-ban levels by 2023 (41.3% of stores, compared with 38.9% in 2019).
Moreover, as found in our NIH-funded study examining the implementation of the Tobacco 21 law, our underage buyers in New Jersey often purchase tobacco products, including flavored e-cigarettes, at easily accessible outlets such as gas stations, convenience stores and vape shops. In nearly 800 purchase attempts, across 100 licensed retailers, underage buyers successfully purchased 330 tobacco products. Similarly, under the Synar program, which requires states to enforce underage access laws, our state had an unacceptable retailer violation rate of 26% in 2023 — up from 9.7% in 2022.
We applaud New Jersey legislators for passing laws like Tobacco 21 and the flavored e-cigarettes ban to protect young people. Likewise, we applaud recent efforts to improve enforcement and compliance through bills A-2388 and A-3992.
A-2388 requires two inspections annually for tobacco licensees, and A-3992 increases penalties for noncompliant retailers. Both ideas are sensible, but neither specifies how additional inspections would be funded, nor do they incentivize the needed inspections. Even though A-3992 doubles a retailer’s fine for a first violation for selling a tobacco product to an underage buyer, both the existing and proposed penalties are too lax.
The National Association of Convenience Stores boasts that the gross profit margin for e-cigarettes is 33%. With a penalty of $250, or even $500, New Jersey retailers are likely taking a calculated risk that the profits they can reap greatly exceed their likely exposure to penalties. In short, without more potent enforcement tools, these well-intentioned efforts are likely to fail.
A battle plan
What can New Jersey do? First, enforcement strategies need to be reimagined. On a local level, the state’s enforcement system is fragmented and relies on municipalities with limited budgets, staffing and expertise. Although the state ban on flavored e-cigarettes allows municipalities to recoup penalties, the proceeds go to a general fund, rather than paying for administrative costs related to the tobacco license and enforcement costs.
The potential impact of the state’s ban on flavored e-cigarettes, which went into effect in April 2020, has been undermined by inadequate enforcement.
To sell tobacco products, New Jersey retailers are required to secure a license for an annual fee of just $50. With about 8,000 licensees, that raises roughly $400,000. Those nominal license fees don’t fund municipalities for employing inspectors who visit licensees for compliance checks. To fund enforcement, the state should increase the tobacco license fee to cover not only expenses for processing applications and issuing licenses but for other expenses related to enforcement.
Second, New Jersey should consider increasing its penalties substantially and revocation of a retailer’s tobacco license for repeated violations. In New York City, once a license is revoked it can’t be replaced because of a tobacco retail density reduction law — another idea New Jersey should consider. By making licenses a valued asset, retailers are incentivized to keep a clean record.
Tobacco control is one of a few areas in public health where modest investments can produce outsized public health gains. Smoking-related illness in the U.S. costs more than $300 billion annually — about $225 billion for direct medical care and more than $156 billion in lost productivity. New Jersey’s state tobacco-related revenue exceeded $790,000,000 in 2023. However, according to the American Lung Association, the state receives a failing grade for funding tobacco control at 8.7% of the level recommended by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Rutgers Institute for Nicotine and Tobacco Studies has established the Tobacco Control Law & Policy Resource Center to serve as a resource for state and local lawmakers and health departments. Given the opportunity, the institute’s resources can help our legislators and health departments make the most of New Jersey’s progressive tobacco control laws to achieve meaningful public health gains.