Public Law 2000 Chapter 87	Summary: State Civil Penalties for Illegal Sale of Tobacco Products to Minors  Full text
Public Law 1995 Chapter 320	Summary: State Law Authorizing Commissioner to Enforce Existing Law Prohibiting Sale of Tobacco to Minors
Synar Amendment 1992 Public Health Service Act	Summary: Federal Law Regarding Sale of Tobacco To Minors

Tobacco Age of Sale Enforcement (TASE) Program

TASE is the component of the CTCP that is responsible for promoting New Jersey's Tobacco Age of Sale laws, to reduce exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), and stop the sale of tobacco products to minors.

One effective intervention to reduce youth smoking is to eliminate their access to tobacco products. While the sale of tobacco products to minors has been illegal for years, there was no specific agency responsible for enforcement. Nor was there funding support. The Tobacco Age of Sale Enforcement (TASE) legislation, enacted in 1996, named DHSS as the agency responsible for enforcement and provided funding for enforcement activities by increasing the fee for the New Jersey retail tobacco license. Before the TASE program began in 1996, noncompliance rates exceeded 80%, meaning that most vendors routinely sold tobacco to minors.

DHSS data from the 2001 Youth Tobacco Survey indicate that among current teen smokers, the most common way for high school students to obtain cigarettes is by buying them in stores. The goal of TASE is to significantly reduce the state non-compliance rate as required by federal law (the Synar legislation). This federal law mandates that each state enact such laws and enforcement measures as necessary to achieve their annual noncompliance rate goal. States that fail to do so risk losing up to 40% of their federal grant.

The TASE program has two major components:

 Education of retail merchants on the law prohibiting sale of tobacco to minors.

  Active enforcement of the law through random unannounced inspections.

TASE, unlike other components of the Comprehensive Tobacco Control Program, is financed almost entirely from state tobacco retail licensing fees.

Under TASE, DHSS provides funds and technical assistance to local health departments (LHDs) to conduct the random compliance check inspections of licensed retail tobacco vendors. LHD participation in this program is voluntary, and 82 of the 111 eligible departments do participate. In non-participating health jurisdictions, public health representatives conduct compliance checks.