"States have made significant progress in enforcing youth tobacco access laws and in reducing the percentage of retailers who sell tobacco products to minors," according to SAMHSA's recently released report, FFY2006 Annual Synar Reports: Youth Tobacco Sales.

The Synar Amendment requires states to have laws prohibiting the sale of tobacco products to those younger than 18 and to conduct annual random, unannounced inspections of a valid sample of tobacco retailers to ensure compliance with these laws.

The average national retailer violation rate (RVR) from these inspections has decreased steadily over the past 10 years, from 40.1% in FY97 to a low of 10.9% in FY06. 

Furthermore, FY06 is the first year that all States and the District of Columbia were in compliance with all Synar regulatory requirements and met the federally established RVR target of 20% or less. Individual State RVRs ranged from 2.2% in Arkansas to 19.2% in Kansas.

The report notes that States with low RVRs generally have tobacco access control programs that are "well coordinated and include an array of strategies, such as targeted merchant and community education, media advocacy, and use of community coalitions to mobilize community support for restricting youth access to tobacco."