News

Parents are being caught off-guard by new tobacco products aimed at youth, but local tobacco control officer Joyce Redford is fighting back. 

Reporter Nikki Gamer writes:

When North Shore Tobacco Control Officer Joyce Redford approaches a convenience store checkout counter, her eyes look past the barrage of colors of candy, gum packets, lottery tickets, knickknacks and lighters. Instead, she is searching for what she calls “crossover products,” items that, as she likes to say, are “hidden in plain sight.”

To the untrained eye, the items are easy to miss amid the dizzying array stacked near the convenience-store register.

But what she is eyeing, and what she is trying to raise awareness about, are tobacco-related products marketed specifically toward teens, which are readily available locally and throughout the country.

“There is no hiding this, which to me is alarming,” Redford said. “I cannot believe what is out there.”

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