CASA (Gaining Momentum: Smoke-free City of La Mesa)

CASA’s Gaining Momentum for a Smoke-free La Mesa project engages youth and

community residents as social change agents to reduce youth access to tobacco products

by holding retailers accountable for sales to underage young people. Using a Tobacco

Retailers License ordinance to monitor compliance of California’s minimum age laws for

tobacco sales, improves social justice by moving accountability from young people to the

adult retailers. Young Adult Tobacco Purchase Surveys (YATPS) will document the rate of

sales to underage youth, establishing a baseline (prior to intervention), monitoring sales

over the course of the five-year project and creating a tracking system for long-term

outcomes (post intervention). Young people will also participate in educating the

community and local leaders about the relationship between easy access, youth use of

tobacco products and the path toward nicotine addiction.