Pharmacy chain announces it will no longer sell tobacco products

CVS Caremark announced last week that it would begin to phase out sales of tobacco products in its stores.

Writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Troyen A. Brennan, MD, FACP, CVS Caremark's chief medical officer, and Steven A. Schroeder, MD, director of the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center at the University of California, San Francisco, called tobacco-related health harms “one of the most important public health challenges of the 21st century” and noted that “emphasis on restricting availability and reinforcing the social unacceptability of smoking casts a harsh light on pharmacies' sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products.”

In addition, pharmacies' increasing involvement in wellness programs and retail clinics highlights the paradox of offering tobacco products for sale, the authors said. “The CVS retail pharmacy, pharmacy benefit management, and retail-clinic companies are, like others, increasingly developing programs to improve the quality of care and reduce health care costs. Selling tobacco products is clearly antithetical to both goals,” the authors wrote. “Although the sale of tobacco products in CVS pharmacies produces more than $1.5 billion in revenues annually, the financial gain is outweighed by the paradox inherent in promoting health while contributing to tobacco-related deaths. As a result, CVS has decided to cease tobacco sales in a phased approach over the next year.”

The full commentary was published Feb. 5 and is available free of charge online.