We don't want children to smoke. But we know they do. We don't want retailers to sell our tobacco products to children. And yet they do.

Barring access is vital to stopping underage smoking. We know the scale of the problem, and we are committed to doing everything we can to tackle it.

Our efforts are based on the imposition of legal age limits and on retailer compliance with those age limits, whether or not national legal sanctions exist. Almost half of the world's nations have imposed a minimum-age-to-purchase. We want to see that expanded across the globe and are currently advocating changes in those countries still lacking nationwide legal restrictions, such as Greece and Argentina. We also fully support financial penalties for retailers who disobey the law. Our efforts towards this are expansive, with an emphasis on educating retailers about their responsibility, as distributors of our products and under the law. We are doing this through information campaigns and retail training programmes, as well as encouraging community initiatives. Where permitted by law, we include voluntary minimum-age warnings on all our packaging, and we distribute point-of-sale accessories to retailers the world over.

We are not alone in our efforts. Retail chains, tobacco companies and community groups have responded to our efforts to change retail culture and to introduce legislation that effectively stems youth smoking.

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