Their decision will increase alcohol consumption and obesity, because bars and grocery stores will be the last places left with cigarette machines.

Anonymous wrote:Every store should be pressured to stop selling cigarettes. It would be a big public health improvement. I'm not advocating a ban; just make tobacco completely unavailable or too costly for anyone to have.

California required all drugstores to stop selling cigarettes a while ago. You can only get them at convenience stores or gas stations.

Every store should be pressured to stop selling cigarettes. It would be a big public health improvement. I'm not advocating a ban; just make tobacco completely unavailable or too costly for anyone to have.

Of all the stores I shop at regularly the ONE store where someone always seems to be buying a pack of cigarettes is CVS. It's interesting that they've decided to stop selling them...

I applaud their decision. I plan to shop there even though I've been a Walgreens fan previously. Even if they've somehow calculated a way to make this profitable from a bottom line perspective (which I'm not sure about as their cigarette sales earn over a billion in profits annually), I'd rather the profit come from smoking cessation Rx's or pretty much anything else. Hopefully other companies will follow suit.

The business logic is that they want to be a company focused on health. They are investing a lot in their urgent care and they think they can get a share of the health care dollars. But they believe that selling cigarettes is in conflict with that goal.

I have to agree. Not that many people would see a doctor who had a cigarette vending machine in the office waiting room.

Anonymous wrote:CVS has probably calculated that they can make profit from prescribing smoking cessation drugs in their Minute clinic & having the prescriptions filled in the store

They already sell smoking cessation drugs, OTC and prescription.

Whether your CVS sells beer and wine depends on where you live and the county or state laws.

Beer and wine.

Anonymous wrote:I'm curious why they stopped selling cigarettes but not alcohol, if the reason was health.

CVS sells alcohol?

CVS has probably calculated that they can make profit from prescribing smoking cessation drugs in their Minute clinic & having the prescriptions filled in the store

Anonymous wrote:I'm curious why they stopped selling cigarettes but not alcohol, if the reason was health.

Modest consumption of alcohol has a positive or at worst a neutral effect on longevity. You can't say that about cigarettes. Every dose has a negative impact on health.

Also, alcohol is linked to 88,000 deaths per year, while for cigarettes the number is 440,000.

I'm curious why they stopped selling cigarettes but not alcohol, if the reason was health.

agreed.

What a brave thing for a public company to do. They sell about 2% of the cigarettes in America, it's 3% of their sales and probably when you add on incidental purchases for people who come in to buy cigarettes, it's even more. Good for them.