Synar Amendment

The beginning of a concentrated, comprehensive effort to prevent young people from smoking was the passage of the Synar Amendment in 1992 (although the final implementation regulations were not disseminated until 1996). The Center for Substance Abuse Prevention oversees the implementation of the Synar Amendment which... 

If a state did not achieve the 20 percent sales-to-minors rate, the Block Grant funds for the state could be withheld. Remember, even though a federal agency is responsible for the oversight of the Synar Amendment, this initiative is not part of the NDCS. It was a separate law passed by Congress. Ironically, the Synar Amendment is the only demonstrably eflfective federal prevention eflFort. 

Even before the Synar Amendment, states and communities were enacting laws and policies restricting smoking. However, the other major event that drove the prevention effort was the Master Tobacco Settlement Agreement of 1998. This agreement, negotiated by the attorney generals of nearly every state (not the... 

Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, No date. Synar amendment Protecting the nation s youth from nicotine addiction, http //prevention.samhsa.gov/tobacco/. 

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