Effects of licensing and supply practices

Many products meant for human consumption that are associated with addictive behaviors are also particularly dangerous for children and adolescents. The negative effects of drinking alcohol, smoking tobacco, using drugs, gambling, watching detrimental media, and playing violent games for the general public are widely acknowledged. Further, there is growing concern regarding the use of products like these by children and adolescents. In this contribution we first focus on an important predictor of the use of risky products, which is the availability of these products to the general public and to children and adolescents in particular. We distinguish between four types of availability. Subsequently, we describe some rules that can be implemented to decrease the availability whereby a special focus is on the compliance with these rules by the suppliers. We end with suggestions on how to increase compliance in order to decrease availability.