Posted on 02/09/2014 2:20:11 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
IT IS GREAT CVS is ending cigarette sales by October, and I know exactly what other dangerous products should go behind the counter when the wall of cancer sticks comes down: Coke, Pepsi, Gatorade, Red Bull, and all other sugary beverages. I say this because I take CVS’s new public health pronouncements seriously.
In announcing the tobacco ban, CVS chief medical officer Troyen Brennan said the drugstore industry is positioning itself to offer more clinical services for chronic diseases. He wrote Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association that it is a “paradox” to sell cigarettes as pharmacies work with primary care clinicians to treat hypertension, diabetes, and other conditions “exacerbated by smoking.”
If CVS truly cares about all the sources of diabetes and other preventable diseases, soda should be the next target. Two days before Brennan’s op-ed, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the most dramatic findings yet linking high sugar consumption to heart disease. The WHO and the American Heart Association recommend that less than 10 percent of a person’s daily calories should come from the added sugars found in processed foods, snacks, and beverages. But 71 percent of Americans exceed that figure.
The study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, found that people whose added sugars comprise between 10 to 25 percent of their calories were at 30 percent higher risk of dying from heart disease...
(Excerpt) Read more at bostonglobe.com ...
57% of $2 Billion is....
$1.14 Billion in lost tax revenue
CVS isn't paying their 'fair share' :>)
We should ban news print. It’s for the trees, you know.
CVS built up too much, too fast. Such bubble expansions court disaster, both because you do not see overexpansion, and it is extra hard to go into a stability mode.
When I go into a CVS what I notice are that its prices for everything are a third to a half higher than for Walgreens.
Importantly, cigarettes are both low volume and high margin for retailers, despite the greedy federal and state taxes, so I imagine that CVS is going to take a hit to the bottom line, and get nothing out of the deal.
In as precarious as their economic circumstances, that may be like waving a needle around their bubble.
The highest percentage of US racial groups that smokes is blacks. Maybe CVS is racist...
I informed the Subway shop near us that if they put Obama’s picture up, I’m going to Chick-Fila.
People complain about Big Oil but it’s Big Government that takes MORE out of your wallet in taxes than Big Oil makes in profits. Road work needed, just jack up the gas tax again (or up the tolls...)
This is a non event. So what if a pharmacy no longer sells tobacco? Pharmacies used to sell laudenum, and gasoline. In fact when cars were first invented the pharmacy was the only place to buy gas. Now they don’t sell laudenum or gas anymore. Big deal. If you want tobacco go to the tobacco shop. Its a lot cheaper than CVS.
I’m hearing a bunch of communists trying to tell CVS what they may and may not do in their stores.
I’m a smoker, but as many other commenters have said, I nonetheless support CVS for making its own private business decision.
I also see the logic of a pharmacy — that is morphing into a medical facility — not selling a product that is a proven contributor to chronic health issues. I wonder if CVS will stop selling booze, too, as they now do in California....
Smells like Germany in the1930’s.
I don’t have a beef with beef jerky, but it does have a lot of animal fat and salt, which isn’t the best for some people if they eat a lot of it.
I just want to call out CVS on this BS. If they don’t want to sell cigarettes because they are unhealthy, then they shouldn’t sell anything that could be unhealthy for anyone.
There are many more people buying Bugler these days than 5 years ago because of the cost of ready-made cigarettes. For the same money, you get more smokes out of a package of Bugler than a pack of Marlboros.
Of course, some are growing their own, now, in response to stupidly high taxes.
This one is growing out of season, but I let it live because it's pretty. I've got 180 seedlings that will be ready for the big garden in March.
/johnny
I agree with you, so long as its their decision to make. What I would object to is some type of government support or push to get retailers to stop selling certain items, e.g., a tax credit to not sell soda.
That's a big "if"....
First of all soda and energy drinks are not addictive like cigarettes...
Nobody walks into a CVS and a clerk puts a gun to the customer head to make them buy a sugar laden drink...
Secondly, soda sales are a HUGE part of CVS profits...
Soft drink companies pay nice sums of marketing funds to display and put their products in the weekly ads promoting their brand...
Getting rid of beer and wine sales would make better sense if CVS has safety and heath concerns...
I can assure you it's a tidy sum...
Every inch of space in a retail outlet needs to be justified...cigs probably didn't meet that criteria...
The CEO is just making a smart PR move...
I doubt they’ll dump soda. From a business perspective cigarettes are a pain to sell, high levels of taxation, high levels of space, low levels of profit, high levels of government oversight, dramatic changes in the law from region to region with many of the laws being annoying and stupid (in my city we force stores to keep their cigs where no one underage could STEAL them). And of course if you carry cigarettes you carry lighters, and in this WOD world lighters have been known to be tied to some odd regulations too. With a smaller and smaller percentage of the population smoking there are good business reasons to dump cigs. Soda has really none of those issues. Sure their EXCUSES for dumping cigs might apply, but that’s just PR, soda is good business.
Too bad Hobby Lobby doesn't have that option...
Plus,
now they won’t have to keep an employee of legal smoking age
behind the front counter in order to sell them.
What? Where are you going with that?
I always found it odd that drug stores sold tobacco products, candy, soda, etc. since the health industry is all about people cutting down on consuming that stuff.
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