CVS plans to stop all tobacco sales

CVS Caremark has announced that it will eliminate the sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products in all of its US pharmacies by October.

There are more than 7,600 CVS pharmacy stores in the United States, according to a company press release.

While sales of tobacco products result in more than $1.5 billion in annual revenue for CVS Caremark, “the financial gain is outweighed by the paradox inherent in promoting health while contributing to tobacco-related deaths,” Troyen A. Brennan, MD, MPH, CVS Caremark chief medical officer, and Steven A. Schroeder, MD, director of the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center at University of California, San Francisco, wrote in a commentary published online in JAMA.

“Advocates have long questioned the juxtaposition of the distribution of medications for promoting health with the sale of the single most deadly consumer product,” they wrote. “Making cigarettes available in pharmacies in essence ‘renormalizes’ the product by sending the subtle message that it cannot be all that unhealthy if it is available for purchase where medicines are sold.”

According to Brennan and Schroeder, changes to the pharmacy industry in recent years have worsened the “paradox” of tobacco products sold in pharmacies — in particular, the development of retail health clinics by pharmacies and grocery stores. “Nowhere else in health care are tobacco products available in the same setting where diseases are being diagnosed and treated. These retail clinics, originally designed to address common acute infections, are gearing up to work with primary care clinicians to assist in treating hypertension, hyperlipidemia and diabetes — all conditions exacerbated by smoking.”

CVS Caremark also plans to launch a national smoking-cessation program in the spring. As part of this program, information and treatment for smoking cessation will be offered online and at CVS locations, with additional cessation programs for members of the company’s pharmacy benefit management plan.

“This action may not lead many people to stop smoking… But if other retailers follow this lead, tobacco products will become much more difficult to obtain,” Brennan and Schroeder wrote in the related commentary. “… In lieu of regulation, pharmacies, grocery chains and mass retailers that wish to promote the goal of better health should recognize the fact that selling tobacco products contradicts the commitment to health care.”

For more information:

Brennan TA. JAMA. 2014;doi:10.1001/jama.2014.686.

Disclosure: Brennan is a salaried employee of CVS Caremark, and holds stock and stock options from CVS Caremark and the University of California, San Francisco. Schroeder reports no relevant financial disclosures.