Tobacco Point of Sale Preemption Playbook

The Tobacco Point of Sale Preemption Playbook equips tobacco prevention staff and their partners with the knowledge, context, and resources needed to understand how preemption of local laws can affect their work.

Local governments often lead the way in adopting laws and policies to improve health outcomes and reduce inequities — including policies concerning tobacco in retail stores. But state preemption of local laws and policies can thwart these efforts to promote health and equity.

In this resource from Counter Tools and ChangeLab Solutions, persons working on commercial tobacco control and prevention can learn about the different forms that preemption can take, key steps and legal considerations for determining local authority, and strategies that communities across the country are using to make progress despite preemption of local point-of-sale tobacco policies.

Counter Tools also produced a Counter Tobacco Podcast episode on the basics of what preemption means, the different forms it can take, how to determine what your community’s local authority to pass policy actually is, and ways that communities across the country are making progress despite being preempted. Listen to the podcast or see the transcript.