CVS Caremark pharmacies to halt tobacco sales

One interesting thing I picked up from Damian McBride's political memoir was that the most progressive (in the taxation sense) change that they could make to the VAT would be to lower the taxes on cigarettes and alcohol.

Here in the UK the only shops that sell cigarettes are supermarkets and independent newsagents, and neither is allowed to have them on display - they&#x27;re on shelves behind the counter with shutters or curtains in front. Some bars have vending machines for them, but even that&#x27;s becoming quite uncommon. I imagine within a decade supermarkets will have stopped selling them altogether so the few remaining smokers will have to hunt out little backstreet shops that still stock them.<p>To learn that cigarettes are sold in <i>pharmacies</i> in the USA is frankly incredible.

Good move for CVS. A rational clear case can be made that a pharmacy should not be selling products whose primary use is subversion of our health. The notion is in fact rather bazaar. It perforce sends a bad message when a store operating under the aegis of a state license to sell medicine sells something as bad for you as cigarettes.

While I applaud the stand they are taking against this killer product, it does seem a bit hypocritical that they will continue to sell junk food and liquor.

This could mean that they&#x27;re moving the cigarettes from the pharmacy proper, to the regular retail area--with a healthy amount of spin.

My first question was how CVS-Caremark, a publicly traded company would be allowed to do this, considering it would hurt their bottom line. I didn&#x27;t think ethics were a reasonable excuse for knowingly hampering profits, unless they felt there was some long-term benefit to their business of not selling cigarettes. Fiduciary duty trumps morals.<p>Does it have anything to do with the fact that CVS-Caremark is one of the largest PBMs in the US (second only to ExpressScripts, actually)?<p>There&#x27;s more at play here than just a moral action.

lifehacker.com to continue interspersing Gawker and Jezebel story links amongst treatises on focus and productivity.

probably because they are making enough money selling e-cigs to make up for it.

In this day and age, I am continually astounded that people smoke and take up smoking.

Tobacco does have some well documented medicinal qualities, believe it or not. There&#x27;s no shortage of things at CVS that can harm through abuse.