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Should CVS's competitors also say bye to tobacco?

Written by Tom Ryan

A month sooner than planned, CVS last Wednesday pulled all remaining tobacco products from its pharmacies nationwide. Despite increasing pleas from legislators and health advocates, its competitors are showing no signs of joining them.

To mark the change, CVS announced plans to rebrand itself from CVS Caremark Corp. to CVS Health while expanding its walk-in clinic business and pharmacy management business. Its stores were plastered with "Ready to quit?" posters to showcase its new quit-smoking campaign with the American Lung Association and a related microsite was also launched.

CVS, the second-largest U.S. drugstore chain, made the move despite estimating the company will lose about $1.5 billion in annual tobacco sales and an additional $500 million in other purchases from tobacco-buying walk-ins. But CEO and President Larry Merlo told Politico that other pharmacy operators also have to grapple with the conflicts of selling such products as a health care provider.

He said, "They need to, quite frankly, go through the same process that we went through in terms of asking the hard questions. We saw a growing contradiction between selling tobacco and delivering health care in a retail environment."

[Image: CVS Health]

In a statement last week, the largest drug store chain, Walgreens — also positioning itself around health care — said that only four percent of overall tobacco sales come from retail pharmacies. "As a result — as many health experts and even a recent doctor survey have noted — a retail pharmacy ban on tobacco sales would have little to no significant impact on actually reducing the use of tobacco."

Kroger and Walmart have also indicated they don't plan any changes.

The American Pharmacists Association called on drugstores to stop selling tobacco in March 2010 and several small, independent chains have complied. But with CVS becoming the first large chain to end tobacco sales, groups including the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and American Lung Association have fresh ammunition to call on others to follow suit.

"They shouldn't be selling poison along side of medicine," Paul Billings, senior vice president for education and advocacy at the American Lung Association, told CBS News.

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