Tobacco control advocates have for years pressured pharmacies
to stop selling tobacco. Today, CVS, the
nation’s second largest drugstore chain, announced it will end all tobacco
product sales on October 1 (here).
I respect the decision by CVS to stop selling
cigarettes. It is immeasurably
preferable to the actions of cities like San Francisco and Boston, which have
banned tobacco sales in pharmacies.
Retailers should have the right to determine which products will meet
their customers’ needs while satisfying their investors’ interests. It’s perfectly appropriate for a firm to drop
a product in long-term decline (but still generating $2 billion in sales) in the
interest of promoting public health. As CVS
CEO Larry Merlo put it: “We've come to the conclusion that cigarettes have no
place in a setting where health care is being delivered.”
But why stop selling smokeless tobacco, and why not offer
e-cigarettes? These products are
effective harm reduction alternatives for current smokers, and sales of both
are increasing. The CVS decision is not
simply about health or profits, but rather, about joining a moral crusade that is
hooked exclusively on the promotion of pharmaceutical nicotine. (CVS is
suggesting that those products may get more exposure at the checkout counter.)
If CVS embraced this thinking storewide, it would
yield to abstinence-only advocates and stop selling condoms, promoting
penicillin sales instead. That would be one more win for Big Pharma, and
another loss for rational and science-based policies.
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