“Mini-businesses”: Tobacco Supply Networks Within New Zealand Secondary Schools J Hoek 1 | E-S Tautolo2
1 University of Otago,
Overview • Restricting tobacco’s ubiquitous availability is crucial to minimising smoking prevalence. • Current research focuses on commercial supply, with less attention given to social supply. • We examined social sources adolescents use to access tobacco, particularly quasi-commercial channels run as mini-enterprises.
Social and Commercial Tobacco Supply • Young people’s access to tobacco via family and peer networks has been well documented.1,2 • Research examining commercial tobacco sources has focussed on retail supply while informal commercial supply networks have received less attention.3 • These supply networks may not exist in parallel; informal commercial supply networks may also operate. • Informal networks are more sophisticated than casual payments for tobacco ; they represent organised commercial activities. • Informal supply networks may disrupt policies designed to reduce young people’s access to tobacco and merit closer scrutiny.
Research Question What informal commercial networks provide adolescents with access to tobacco products?
Methodology Sample: We used Pacific affinity groups to recruit 30 young adults. • Participants identified as Cook Island Māori, Samoan, Niuean, Tongan, and Tokelauan. • They had lived most of their lives in New Zealand.
Design: We conducted six focus groups comprising four to six participants. • Groups were structured by gender and smoking status (daily, intermittent and susceptible nonsmokers). • Discussions lasted between 60 and 90 minutes.
Interview Guide: We used a talanoa approach (flexible and open questioning). • Discussions explored participants’ smoking histories and environments; these results focus on tobacco supply networks.
Dunedin, New Zealand 2AUT University, Auckland, New Zealand
Results Tobacco was widely available in participants’ family and peer networks. Its ubiquity had piqued curiosity and prompted urges to experiment: “they had it on them… always smoking so I was like, ‘let me try.’” School Supply Networks Several participants had been offered tobacco at school and knew of sophisticated supply networks: “man, it’s easy to access it, aye, like people buy it, people sell it at school.”
Selling Rationale Tobacco sales enabled sellers to meet basic expenses, such as food and travel: “they just need some money, …canteen money to give to buy food and stuff… selling smokes is the only option for them to get money and for them to be able to travel, to do mini businesses and stuff like that.”
Marketing and Market Creation Sellers reportedly targeted younger students: “they sell it to, like, the newbies… the year 9s … ‘cause they’re the easy targets.”
Word of mouth also provided efficient referrals: “people ask who’s selling and then …they will go up to that person and be like, ‘ohh, can I buy one?’”
Markets were competitive: “this year I haven’t really been selling smokes because there’s other people that sell smokes… if they have any then it’s a waste of time buying a packet of smokes and selling them at school.”
≠ Sellers’ Tobacco Sources Sellers sourced their tobacco in varied ways: “they ask strangers, if they’re going to a diary [and] older than them… parents, or sometimes they’re just older siblings, siblings, friends.”
Some cultivated willing retailers: “When I was at high school, there was this place just down the road from our school… the guy… will sell it to, like, students.”
Risks Smokers were often caught but sellers were not, allowing sales to continue: “It’s the people who buys the smokes that get caught… the sellers are the hard ones to find.”
Discussion Tobacco seemed easily available within schools; most participants knew of informal commercial networks: • These networks went beyond ad hoc transactions and were organised commercial activities. • Suppliers had developed marketing strategies; they targeted vulnerable groups, used word of mouth to recruit buyers, and managed competition. • Participants’ schools did not appear to have systematic processes for managing these networks Schools face challenges in closing down tobacco supply networks as selling (and consumption) will continue outside school boundaries. Strategies for Future Analysis Restricting tobacco supply is crucial to reducing smoking prevalence and health inequalities. • Schools could support their mandatory smokefree status by making smoking more difficult and cessation more accessible; they could: • Eliminate covert areas used by young people to smoke, thus making smoking more difficult to disguise and easier to detect. • Recognise that students may smoke and offer culturally relevant cessation support programmes.3
Limitations and Future Research • Our findings are based on a small sample of Pacific young adults. • Further research is required: • With young people of other ethnicities and varied SES. • To develop and evaluate measures that could inhibit proxy tobacco purchases.
Conclusions • Informal commercial tobacco supply networks within schools could: • Circumvent retail supply restrictions, • Facilitate smoking uptake among young people, • Undermine tobacco endgame goals.
• Further research with a larger and more diverse sample is urgently required to: • Estimate the scale of this problem • Identify measures most likely to address it.
References 1. Gendall P, Hoek J, Marsh L, et al. Youth tobacco access: trends and policy implications. BMJ Open 2014;4:e004631. 2. Marsh L, Dawson A, McGee R. “When you’re desperate you’ll ask anybody”: Young people’s social sources of tobacco. ANZJPH 2013;37(2): 155-161. 3. Gifford H, Tautolo D, Erick S, Hoek, J et al. A qualitative analysis of Māori and Pacific smokers’ views on informed choice and smoking. BMJ Open 2016; 6: :e011415.
Contact and COI The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare. Findings reported come from a study funded by the Health Promotion Agency (New Zealand). For more information, contact:
[email protected]
www.aspire2025.org.nz
