Skip to content
Close
SEARCH
CONTACT
PHONE HOTLINE: 1.866.SD-QUITS
PHONE HOTLINE: 1.866.SD-QUITS
QuitlineHero

Quit Today

South Dakota QuitLine is a FREE resource available to any state resident 13 or older. Choose from three ways to leave smoking, vaping or chewing in the past. Quit, stay quit and breathe easy.

Quit Today
FindYourPower-Hero-2

TRIBAL TOBACCO ADVOCACY TOOLKIT

The purpose of the Toolkit is to support tribes and tribal allies with a framework for public health

Access Advocacy Toolkit
Youth-Header-nav

Youth & Young Adults

Children and young adults are especially vulnerable to loss of brain function as a result of vaping.
Even using e-cigarette devices without nicotine can cause damage. To protect your physical and mental health, it's time to quit.

Young Adults
Middle School
More-Good-Years-Background

More Good years

Quitting is the difference between quality time with your family and missing out to catch your breath. Enjoy your years really living. Leave tobacco in the past, and live more good years.

Learn More
Order Free Signage & Materials
ecig-secondhand

Control Tobacco

Access tools for educators, coalitions and more. Explore our media library, order educational or advocacy supplies and more.

Order Free Signage & Materials

Gray textured background.

Monitor Compliance & Threats

People can be stubborn and attempt to brush off your policy. Stand strong in enforcing it.
Tribal Tobacco Advocacy Toolkit

Prepare for Backlash

If you don’t monitor compliance and threats, who will? 

Change is hard. When people feel like no one is watching, it’s easy to disregard a policy. It’s equally important to monitor people or groups organizing a plan to resist or threaten policy change. If it took you a year to get your policy passed, expect threats to your policy for at least a year.

Planning

  1. Monitor policy compliance. See section on collecting and sharing local data for tips.
    Learn How to Collect Local Surveys 
    1. Discuss with your coalition members what perfect compliance looks like.
    2. Design a simple assessment tool with your compliance criteria.
    3. Ask volunteers to choose from a list of locations to assess.
    4. Compile your results to learn how good or bad policy compliance is.
    5. Publicly congratulate and thank those who are doing well. See share results in a meaningful way for tips.
      Learn How To Share Data
    6. If you discover policy violations, first respectfully notify the violator. If they continue to go against the policy, notify whoever has authority to enforce it.
  2. Monitor policy threats.
    1. Figure out who is organizing opposition and why. Prepare rebuttal statements to their specific arguments. Use data as much as possible.
      Find State or National Data
    2. Find out what the other side needs to do to overturn the policy.
    3. Ask community members and decision-makers who supported your policy to notify you if they hear of any organized attempts to repeal the policy.
    4. Have a presence at meetings where your policy is being threatened. Rally your supporters, just like you did when you presented the policy. Ask for the opportunity to defend the policy with your rebuttal statements. Hold back emotions and stick to the facts.

Follow Up

  • Did you learn anything new about the opposers position? What information do you need to counter their position?
  • What can you do better in the future to defend the policy?
Example of Monitoring

Čaŋlí Coalition

Three years after Ordinance 77 passed, we worked with youth volunteers to assess business compliance. Volunteers looked for people smoking or cigarette butts within 50 of building entrances, and smoke-free air signs at each entrance.

compliance chart, list of business that passed

The Canli Coalition successfully defended Ordinance 77 four times from 2015-2018. Policy threats came in the form of petitions to repeal, requests for exceptions, and complaints that the policy was hurting business revenue and a violation of smoker’s rights. Coalition members learned about the petition through the rumor mill. We were notified of less formal complaints to tribal council by council members who helped pass the policy.

For each threat, we used social media and a calling tree to rally our supporters and show up in numbers at the meeting. One time, our youth volunteers weren’t able to get out of school to attend the meeting, so they created a video we shared with decision makers and on social media.

 

Canli coalition-logo

The Tribal Tobacco Advocacy Toolkit is a product of the Canli Coalition of CRST. ©2021 Canli Coalition. All Rights Reserved.