Philip Morris targets 3,500 retailers to curb sales to minors

Philip Mor­ris Trinidad and To­ba­go is rolling out its Un­der­age Ac­cess Pre­ven­tion Pro­gramme, tar­get­ing more than 3,500 points of sale na­tion­wide this year to help pre­vent to­bac­co and nico­tine prod­ucts from be­ing sold to mi­nors.

The pro­gramme in­volves ed­u­ca­tion­al vis­its, in­for­ma­tion­al ma­te­ri­als and posters aimed at re­in­forc­ing age re­stric­tions and help­ing re­tail­ers ap­ply age-ver­i­fi­ca­tion re­quire­ments con­sis­tent­ly.

Philip Mor­ris TT Cor­po­rate Af­fairs Man­ag­er Marisa Bernard said the com­pa­ny was par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cerned about mi­nors ac­cess­ing elec­tron­ic cig­a­rettes.

“Elec­tron­ic cig­a­rettes, which should nev­er, un­der any cir­cum­stances, end up in the hands of mi­nors,” Bernard said.

She said pre­vent­ing youth ac­cess was a shared re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in­volv­ing man­u­fac­tur­ers, re­tail­ers, au­thor­i­ties, par­ents, ed­u­ca­tors and so­ci­ety.

Bernard said the pro­gramme was in­tend­ed to give re­tail­ers the tools need­ed to com­ply with age re­stric­tions and pro­mote re­spon­si­ble mar­ket­ing prac­tices.

Philip Mor­ris said its UAP pro­gramme forms part of a glob­al ini­tia­tive by its par­ent com­pa­ny, Philip Mor­ris In­ter­na­tion­al, and is in­tend­ed to re­in­force re­tail­ers’ com­mit­ment to age ver­i­fi­ca­tion.

The com­pa­ny said its to­bac­co and nico­tine prod­ucts are in­tend­ed on­ly for adult smok­ers or adult nico­tine users who would oth­er­wise con­tin­ue smok­ing or us­ing to­bac­co and nico­tine prod­ucts.

It al­so ac­knowl­edged that the prod­ucts are not risk-free and con­tain ad­dic­tive nico­tine.

“Mi­nors, peo­ple who have nev­er smoked or used to­bac­co or nico­tine prod­ucts, and those who have quit us­ing them should not use any of our prod­ucts,” Bernard said.

Philip Mor­ris said its re­spon­si­ble mar­ket­ing poli­cies al­so in­clude ad­ver­tis­ing self-reg­u­la­tion, train­ing for busi­ness part­ners and ma­te­ri­als re­mind­ing con­sumers that its prod­ucts are in­tend­ed ex­clu­sive­ly for adults.