Last week CVS Caremark announced that it plans to stop selling cigarettes and other tobacco products in all of its drugstores by October, including those in Nassau County.
“We came to the decision that cigarettes and providing health care just don’t go together in the same setting,” said Larry Merlo, chief executive of CVS. Better late than never.
“We have about 26,000 pharmacists and nurse practitioners helping patients manage chronic problems like high cholesterol, high blood pressure and heart disease, all of which are linked to smoking,” Merlo said.
For years we have called on the pharmacies on Long Island, including Walgreens and Walmart, to stop selling any product containing nicotine.
In some of the stores the cigarettes, which now cost more than $10 a pack, are sold behind the counter right next to expensive products designed to help shoppers break and addiction to smoking.
Here’s an idea for stores that still sell tobacco: 25 percent off a box of Nicorette with every carton of cigarettes sold.
The campaigns by the Heart Association and others to publicize the dangers of smoking have been both commendable and impressive. Their disturbing commercials show people barely able to breathe, dying of lung and heart disease and cancer.
They don’t appear to be effective. The people who smoke have seen the commercials. They know how dangerous smoking is. They don’t care. They’re addicted.
The drugstores say they exist to keep your family healthy – some stores on the island now have nurse practitioners and offer flu and other vaccinations – and it is inconsistent with their statement of purpose to be selling a product so detrimental to the health of their customers.
Some critics of the announcement by CVS note that its stores will continue to sell candy, chips and Red Bull. While it’s true that all of these things can be and often are harmful to the users’ health, they can be enjoyed safely in moderation. That’s not true for nicotine.
And no one’s health will be affected if someone drinks a can of soda and eats a bag of chips in the same room.
CVS estimates that its decision will result in a $2 billion loss in sales each year. But the profit margin on cigarettes is far less than any other product that it sells because of the large amount that goes to federal and state taxes. And at a time when the major pharmacies are trying to position themselves as “health-care providers” concerned about your family, this move that made news across the nation was brilliant public relations.
We urge Walgreens, which has the largest number of drugstores in the nation, Walmart, Duane Reade and others to follow the example set by CVS or face a public relations disaster.
But it shouldn’t stop there. Pressure should be put on 7-Eleven and other convenience stores to get rid of the cigarettes.
None of this will stop everyone from smoking. Nor will it stop smokers from dying of lung disease and cancer.
But hopefully it will reinforce the message that smoking cigarettes is a deadly habit.
At the very least, the CVS announcement was a big step in the right direction.
