Smoke shops

Before the Second World War many manufacturers gave away collectible cards, one in each packet of cigarettes. This practice was discontinued to save paper during the war, and was never generally reintroduced. During the second world war they gave out free cigarettes to the soldiers and citizens. On April 1, 1970 President Richard Nixon signed the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act into law, banning cigarette advertisements on television in the United States starting on January 2, 1971. However, some tobacco companies attempted to circumvent the ban by marketing new brands of cigarettes as "little cigars"; examples included Tijuana Smalls, which came out almost immediately after the ban took effect, and Backwoods Smokes, which hit the market in the winter of 1973-1974 and whose ads used the slogan, "How can anything that looks so wild taste so mild".

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The sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products to minors under 18 is now prohibited by law in all fifty states of the United States. In Alabama, Alaska, New Jersey, Suffolk County, New York, and Utah the statutory age is 19, and legislation was pending as of 2004 in some other states, including California, to raise the age to 19, or even 21 in some cases. In Massachusetts, parents and guardians are allowed to give cigarettes to minors, but sales to minors are prohibited. Similar laws exist in many other countries as well. In Canada, most of the provinces require smokers to be 19 years of age to purchase cigarettes (except for Quebec, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta, where the age is 18). However, the minimum age only concerns the purchase of tobacco, not use. Alberta, however, does have a law which prohibits the possession or use of tobacco products by all persons under 18, punishable by a $100 fine. Australia has a nation-wide ban on the selling of all tobacco products to people under 18.

In the UK, cigarettes can legally be sold only to people aged 16 and over. However it is not illegal for people under this age to buy (or attempt to buy) cigarettes, so only the retailer is breaking the law by selling to under 16s. Most countries in the world have a legal smoking age of 18. One notorious exception is Switzerland, where the age is 16 whereas a country such as Turkey, which has one of the highest percentage of smokers in its population, has a legal age of 18. In other countries, such as Egypt, however, there is no legal smoking age at all.

However, while bans stand in most countries for sales to minors, it is still common for merchants to disregard such laws as they are tough to enforce. Often the profits from selling cigarettes to minors illegally are much greater than the fines paid out in very infrequent times when they are caught. Some police departments in the United States occasionally send a clearly underage child into a store where cigarettes are sold, and have the child attempt to purchase cigarettes. If the vendor sells them to the minor, the store is issued a fine. This is by far the most common way in which cigarette vendors are caught when they sell cigarettes to minors.