title: Tobacco sales to minors in Italy.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  One of the strategies to control tobacco is to limit purchase of cigarettes to minors. To understand the attitudes of Italian adults towards regulations to prevent minors from purchasing tobacco products, we added specific questions to the annual survey on smoking in Italy.
  
  
  METHODS
  During March-April 2007, we conducted a survey on smoking on 3,057 subjects representative of the Italian population aged > or = 15 years. Two specific questions were included, one investigating the attitudes towards the proposed legislation prohibiting purchase of tobacco to individuals under 18 years of age (instead of 16 years) as a policy to reduce smoking prevalence and consumption. The second question asked whether the current tobacco sales-to-minors law was observed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Overall, 78% of Italians believed that a restriction of the current tobacco sales-to-minors law could be moderately to extremely effective as a strategy to decrease smoking prevalence and consumption. More than 90% of Italians reported that they had never seen in their lifetime a retailer refusing to sell cigarettes to an adolescent or requesting the minor's identification or age.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  A restriction of the legislation, increasing to 18 years the minimum age for purchasing tobacco, would limit access to tobacco products by minors, only if adopted together with systematic and effective enforcement measures.
authors.affiliation: Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche "Mario Negri", Milan, Italy. gallus@marionegri.it
authors.forename: Silvano
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gallus
authors.forename: Irene
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Tramacere
authors.forename: Piergiorgio
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Zuccaro
authors.forename: Paolo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Colombo
authors.forename: Carlo
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: La Vecchia
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001290:Attitude; D002648:Child; D003132:Commerce / Q000191:economics / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence* / Q000639:trends; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy / Q000453:epidemiology; D007880:Legislation, Drug / Q000639:trends; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D033242:Minors / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015995:Prevalence; D011639:Public Opinion; D016540:Smoking Cessation / Q000191:economics / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D000074606:Smoking Prevention; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D019460:Tobacco Industry / Q000191:economics / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D014026:Nicotiana