The survey, conducted annually by a substance abuse prevention program in the Marshall Islands, shows how easy it is for children to purchase cigarettes, chewing tobacco and alcohol products in the Marshall Islands, Jay Plasman, an official with Marshall Islands Epidemiological and Prevention Initiatives, said Thursday.
A recent sting operation on Majuro, the capital, showed that 85 percent of 100 stores surveyed sold tobacco illegally to teenagers under 18, and on
Ebeye, 75 percent sold tobacco products illegally, according to MI-EPI representatives Jay Plasman and Ben Chutaro.
The survey is conducted as part of a United States-funded substance abuse prevention program known as Synar, which is named after late U.S. Congressman Michael Synar, who sponsored legislation establishing the program aimed at preventing sales of tobacco and alcohol to minors.
Plasman said his office used teenage boys and girls aged 14-17 to go into about 130 stores to buy tobacco products.
Very few stores refused to sell to these underage customers or asked for identification for age verification, said Plasman.
The level of illegal sales to children rose dramatically from 2009, which could reflect that last year stores may have been aware of the survey happening and so were more careful about sales to minor, said Plasman. It also likely reflects lack of enforcement of laws governing sales of tobacco and alcohol to minors. The last prosecution of a store for illegally selling tobacco to minors was in 2003.
“Our goal is (to get it down to) a 15 percent violation rate,” said Plasman of ongoing efforts that include outreach to store owners about tobacco and alcohol laws and education of young people about the hazards of substance abuse.
Substance abuse among teenagers in this western Pacific nation is high, Plasman said. A recent Youth Risk Behavior Survey showed that 42 percent of high school students drink alcohol. This is more than any of the other U.S. affiliated Pacific jurisdictions, he said.
MI-EPI is developing a substance abuse prevention plan together with people from other interested agencies, such as police, non-government groups, and the Ministries of Health and Internal Affairs, he said.
