Understanding the Relationship Between State Minimum Pricing Laws and Discount Mechanisms, 2005–2014

Pricing laws for tobacco, intended to promote fair competition, have an added benefit of standardizing consumer prices. Unfortunately, the power of these pricing laws may be reduced at both the distributor and consumer level. Allowing distributing parties to reduce their costs using trade/cash discounts or competitor price-matching, in conjunction with allowing consumers to reduce the purchase price of products below cost using coupons or to purchase bundled products below cost, lowers the intended strength of these laws.

This poster presented at the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco's annual meeting in February 2015 seeks to understand the complexity and variety of minimum pricing schemes across the United States, and to identify areas that increase or reduce the strength of a state’s pricing efforts.