Back in the 1970s and 1980s, cigarette vending machines could be found in nearly every restaurant, bar, convenience store, and gas station. At the time I was an enthusiastic bar-hopping chain smoker, so I cherished their ubiquity. Since then, they have been largely banished from the American commercial landscape.
In 1989, Utah became the first state to enact a total ban on cigarette vending machines in locations accessible to minors. This focus on vending machines was a bit odd since a 1992 article in the journal Tobacco Control reported that minors obtained 71 percent of their tobacco from over-the-counter sales, 19 percent from friends, 7 percent from parents, and just 3 percent from vending machines.
