CVS to snuff out tobacco sales in Oct.
CVS Caremark Corp. said it would no longer sell tobacco products at its 7,600 stores by Oct. 1, becoming America’s first national drugstore chain to take cigarettes off the shelves.
The Woonsocket, R.I.-based company said the decision will cost it an estimated $2 billion in sales, though it has identified other opportunities that are expected to offset that revenue hit.
The change comes as CVS is trying to position itself as an alternative to the doctor’s office, employing more than 26,000 pharmacists and nurse practitioners who counsel customers on how to control high cholesterol, high blood pressure and how to deal with heart disease, all of which can be linked to smoking. CVS has never sold electronic cigarettes, which deliver nicotine without tobacco and emit a vapor instead of smoke.
“The paradox of cigarette sales in pharmacies has become even more relevant recently, in large part because of changes in the pharmacy industry,” Steven Schroeder, director of the smoking cessation leadership center at the University of California San Francisco, said in a statement. “Most pharmacy chains are retooling themselves as an integral part of the health care system.”
Other retailers – such as Target and Wegmans – stopped selling cigarettes years ago, while cities such as Boston have already banned the sale of tobacco products in pharmacies.
Sen. Richard Moore, D-Uxbridge, applauded CVS’s move.
“The decision to end selling tobacco products is a good one that will benefit people everywhere,” said Moore, who is the Senate chairman of the legislature’s Committee on Health Care Financing. “I hope it will lead other pharmacy chains to also recognize the mixed message when a business sells products designed to make us well alongside those that can kill us.”
The Massachusetts Medical Society said the decision was a milestone in tobacco prevention efforts.
“The sale of products in health care facilities is inconsistent and contradictory with health and well-being,” said society president Dr. Ronald Dunlap.
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