title: Long-term effects of laws governing youth access to tobacco.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  We sought to examine the association between policies governing access to tobacco during adolescence and subsequent adult smoking.
  
  
  METHODS
  We analyzed adult smoking data from the 1998 through 2006-2007 administrations of the US Current Population Survey Tobacco Use Supplement by employing a quasi experimental approach. Participants (n = 105,519) were adults, aged 18 to 34 years at the time of the survey. Smoking outcomes included having ever smoked 100 cigarettes, smoking at the time of the survey, and having smoked 10 or more cigarettes a day conditioned on being an ever smoker. These were predicted from exposure to state youth access policies at age 17 years.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Four of the 9 policies exhibited significant associations with reduced prevalence of 1 or more smoking outcomes, primarily among women. Lesser effects for other policies could not be ruled out.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Restrictions on youth access to tobacco might lead to reduction in smoking prevalence later in adulthood. The effect might be limited to women; we estimate that having all policies in place could be associated with a 14% reduction in lifetime smoking prevalence for women, and an additional 29% reduction in heavy smoking among ever smokers.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, 660 South Euclid Avenue, Box 8134, St Louis, MO 63110, USA. Rick@wustl.edu
authors.forename: Richard A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Grucza
authors.forename: Andrew D
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: Plunk
authors.forename: Pamela R
authors.initials: PR
authors.lastname: Hipp
authors.forename: Patricia
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Cavazos-Rehg
authors.forename: Melissa J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Krauss
authors.forename: Ross C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Brownson
authors.forename: Laura J
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Bierut
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003132:Commerce / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D005260:Female; D033161:Government Regulation; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D011159:Population Surveillance; D015995:Prevalence; D012907:Smoking / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology