CVS changes name, stops tobacco sales early

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite

By TOM MURPHY

As CVS sharpens its focus on customer health, the nation's second-largest drugstore chain will tweak its corporate name and stop the sale of tobacco nearly a month sooner than planned.

CVS Caremark said it will now be known as CVS Health, effective immediately. The signs on its roughly 7,700 drugstores won't change, so the tweak may not register with shoppers.

However, those customers will see a big change when they check out. The cigars and cigarettes that used to fill the shelves behind store cash registers have been replaced with nicotine gum and signs urging visitors to kick the tobacco habit.

A store in downtown Indianapolis also stocked free tobacco quit packs where cigarettes used to sit. The red-and-white boxes, nearly the size of a cigarette pack, contain coupons, a card showing how much a smoker can save by quitting and a booklet with Sudoku and other games to distract someone fighting the urge to smoke.

FULL story at link.


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20140903/us-cvs-name-change-b6e398fc78.html

[davidpdx]

1. Hopefully this will pave the way for the other chains to stop selling tobacco

I was in a Walgreens in Portland a month ago and I do remember seeing cigarettes sold there (I don't smoke).

[Sherman A1]

5. Agreed

To CVS for their leadership on this issue.

[Blue_Adept]

2. The shelving changed here a few months ago

Once the announcement hit that they were moving away from the tobacco sales, the good sized central store in my town cleared the shelves within a week and swapped it out with all the quit the habit stuff and other pro-healthy lifestyle things.

Having been going there for quite a few years, it still looks weird to not see the rows and rows of packs. Good, but weird.

[Marrah_G]

3. I was in there this morning and yup, no more cigs.

[ChazII]

4. I was at my local CVS on Sunday

and the cigarettes were gone. Like the article states there were signs encouraging 'kick the habit.'

[sunnystarr]

6. Now if we can only do this for beer and wine

in grocery/convenience stores and close all liquor stores just think of how many additional lives can be saved .... not to mention the major drop in domestic violence incidents.

Then we can move on to take all high calorie foods off the shelves and eliminate ice cream and soda. Close all those nasty fast food places too and replace them with salad bars.

Finally we can get all cars programmed to a top speed of 55 mph on highways and 30 on residential streets.

I can think of a few more things but this is a good start to my saving lives for the day moment.

[maddiemom]

8. Good one!

[bbgrunt]

10. ohh, let's not just program the cars, let's

eliminate them along with the gas stations and require people to walk or bike or stay home. Solve the climate thingy and improve muscle tone at the same time!

[whatthehey]

11. except none of those things kill anybody else

as a standard side effect of their intended normal use.

You can drink all your life without beating up a spouse or causing a crash. Most drinkers do. 67% of the populace in the US drinks.

You can eat like Mr. Creosote all your life and it would take an extraordinary concatenation of slapstick absurdity for you to kill anybody else because of that. It's almost unheard of.

You cannot however smoke without causing a lethal cocktail of hundreds of poisons and carcinogens to become part of the air others breathe (absent hermetically sealed environments, in which case go for it). It's a necessary and concomitant part of smoking, that kills 55000 people a year in the US.

When smokers never exhale and smoke in bubbles you'll have a telling point instead of a strained non sequitur.

[MoleyRusselsWart]

16. Unless you're talking about

A closed indoor environment, people smoking outside are not harming you. I mean unless you are standing right next to them and the wind is blowing your way.

Personally, I think its totally ridiculous that smokers can't have their own bars and restaurants. If you don't like it, go to the non smoking ones which will no doubt outnumber the smoking ones 20-1.

Bottom line its a legal product. Either make it illegal or let people do what they want in their own homes, private establishments.

[Bandit]

36. Which is it smoke in private in your own home or smoke in public?

You seem to want both. I personally don't care one whit what you do in your own home as long as it doesn't hurt anyone, but the moment you move into the public domain you are effecting other people and with poisonous fumes. I am like you. Make it illegal to smoke anywhere in public.. PERIOD.

[MoleyRusselsWart]

37. But its not illegal...

I understand not allowing smoking in public indoor places, even tight cornered outdoor places. But places like public beaches with the sustained 30 MPH winds? C'mon, now you're just being dicks.

And if I opened a private business, who the hell are you to tell me I can't smoke (perfectly legal product) in there? And dont tell me its bad for the workers. For one thing, PLENTY of jobs are WAY worse for your health. Second, patrons and potential workers can all choose to go somewhere else, lord knows theres plenty of options.

Things like this give ammo to those who say liberals love forcing their beliefs and desires on everyone else.

This is an actual case where the market will work it out. 95% of bars/restaurants will be smoke free, with a tiny fraction left for those who choose to smoke.

Pick and choose your battles. This one is just bullying.

[whatthehey]

42. it's legal to urinate

Urine is far less harmful than ETS. You cannot in any "private" business, really a public accomodation, allow people to urinate in public open areas at will.

Raw meat is legal. It cannot legally be stored on open shelves above dairy products.

Sex is legal. It cannot legally be demonstrated in restaurants.

Why do people insist on thinking the legal product that kills more people than any other, even those who do not use it, should be an exception to laws that restrict how potentially harmful products can be used in public?

[sunnystarr]

45. You're only pointing out

that we as a society create laws to regulate/control certain behaviors. Cigs are legal. They've created laws to regulate/control. You'll find maximum compliance when the laws make sense and don't overreach. When it become illegal to smoke a legal product on the beach or in open spaces then it's gone too far. Also you can smoke at your local VFW but not in a restaurant you may own. Also an overreach. You can smoke in a smoke shop too. So the logic used for restaurants, that it would harm the health of employees, flies out the window.

They did a great sell job to the public. Cooked the studies on second hand smoke. Kept reporting high death numbers for smokers even when it dramatically declined. Divide and conquer. Make those in the middle and upper classes feel superior to those in the lower income brackets. It fed right in to the need of others to tell you how to live your life. The states loved it cause it was free money from the tobacco companies. Lawyers loved it too. Did they really give a damn about smokers? Not on your life!

Then the states got together to slap a punitive tax on cigs so that those who were addicted and couldn't really afford it were forced to spend more. In the South cigs went from $15/carton to a high of over $70/carton, with most selling now for around $50/carton.

I said at the time that food would be next to tackle obesity. With food as with cigs, they set it up. Growth hormones added to livestock that were then ingested by humans. And a huge segment of the populace gained weight. You are what you eat. This next campaign is in its infancy but it will grow because they're already spending all the cash they're gonna rake in while pretending to care about your health.

We're being played and one day all of you in your ivory towers of superiority will be the victims. Unless of course you can afford the free range chicken and beef and the increase in prices on the fruits and veggies.

[MoleyRusselsWart]

46. Your examples are silly

As I said, I don't believe a persons smoke should effect anyone NOT VOLUNTARILY accepting it, like in a privately owned bar or what have you. I agree there should be "restrictions", public places and so on. But no one should have the right to tell anyone they can't use a perfectly legal product in their own business establishment where their workers and patrons voluntarily enter.

[sunnystarr]

17. It takes years and years to

possibly die of smoking. Second hand smoke studies just don't meet the scientific standards of correlation (cause/effect) to convincingly state that it compromises other people who inhale smoke. I would possibly believe studies done where there are no cars on roads where people inhale carbon monoxide on a regular basis by either just walking or when sitting behind another vehicle in traffic.

Now alcohol on the other hand will give you more immediate results. How many have died from a drunk driver? How many have been maimed for life by a drunk driver? How many have been beaten or killed by a drunk person?

Obesity takes a little less time than smoking to cause health problems but doesn't affect other people except for those who feed their family the same unhealthy diet spreading the obesity to the rest of the family.

Speeding causes accidents resulting in deaths and physical impairments and again has an immediate result.

I did neglect to add guns to my list but that would cause a revolution from the 2nd amendment militias which would then cause more death.

[graegoyle]

18. Two words:

Asthma.

[sunnystarr]

22. 2 syllables one word lol

Isn't it interesting that asthma has increased dramatically from 1980 to 1998 then supposedly plateaued after 2000 although the ambulatory incidents for asthma increased after 2000. That may be due to the changes in the questionnaire used to identify asthma cases since the CDC is ever so reluctant to report how dramatically it increased at a time when smoking decreased just as enormously.

[yellowwoodII]

20. Addiction--young people

This is a false equivalency.
One can die from a gunshot or lung disease or alcoholism, but one is still dead.
The worst thing about tobacco is that it is addictive and it hooks people who are too young to have good judgment.

[sunnystarr]

24. I would add alcohol as addictive (nt)

[passiveporcupine]

38. addictive?

For some, especially if it's over consumed. In 2012 the US population was 313.9 million. an estimate 130.6 million people in the US consume alcohol. In 2012, 17 million adults aged 18 or older had an "Alcohol Use Disorder" in the US.

http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-consumption/alcohol-facts-and-statistics

http://alcoholism.about.com/od/faq/f/How-Many-People-Drink-Alcohol-In-The-U-S.htm

So, about 13 percent of the people who drink appear to be addicted to alcohol. I wonder how many smokers are addicted?

About 10 percent of smokers are actually not nicotine-dependent, Sachs said.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Healthday/story?id=6133200

[whatthehey]

41. drunk driving is not a necessary part of drinking

emitting ETS is a necessary part of smoking. The CDC are not idiots.

[sunnystarr]

23. This is why I hate "statistics"

which can be manipulated to show anything you want.

In the United States, the impact of smoking as a cause of death is waning. Between 1987 and 2002, the contribution of smoking to American deaths declined by 35 percent. The reason is that there are now fewer current and recent former smokers, especially at older ages when smoking takes a higher toll. In fact, the decline in deaths from smoking is so large that it dwarfs the decline in other causes of death.

The data and methods that the CDC uses to generate Big Kill estimates should no longer be treated like state secrets.

http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/regulation/2007/12/v30n4-2.pdf

Now since it declined by 35% in 2002, 14 years later and aggressive attacks on smoking would have reduced it by another 35%. The above article reveals just how ludicrous the CDC numbers are.

[whatthehey]

43. yeah! in 2014 it's down to 41000

...more than twice the absurdly inflated "drunk" driving statistics (talk about manipulated - these include 40% of drivers who never had BAC tests, pedestrians, passengers, and drivers definitively not at fault).

Progress, but not enough to let 18-20% of the population poison the rest of us at will.

[Tanuki]

44. You're coming here citing the Cato Institute as a reliable source?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cato_Institute

[yallerdawg]

13. So, as a society...

we should all agree that the self-indulgence of the few should be paid for by the many?

On the other hand, as a society should we make it more difficult to indulge?

You still have the right to smoke, drink, eat bad food, and recklessly speed. As a society, can we agree the individual will bear the cost of those behaviors?

Just a philosophical question. From one who has lived a life of indulgence.

[sunnystarr]

25. I so cringe whenever I see that false equivalency here

I expect it from the Ayn Rand types in R-land. The "Why should I have to pay for your (fill in the blank)" meme.

"Unemployment? They should look harder for work. Not my prob."

"Welfare? They should have planned better. She should have kept her legs together. They should get help at their church."

Yours is indulgence. Wow! So anything defined as being HUMAN shouldn't be covered.

But maybe as a society we all bear the responsibility for allowing corporations to push cigarettes on kids, to glorify it in our movies, and to put it in each home on TV. Maybe we all bear responsibility for creating a society that relies on cars instead of public transportation leaving the population with no choices unless they are in a major city. Maybe we shouldn't connect sports with beer or wine with romance. I could go on and on but you get my point.

Also in case you reject that point, where do we stop? You got the flu and want insurance to pay for hospitalization? Maybe you should have had your flu shot. And if you didn't take care of your own body to fight off bugs why should we have to pay?

Your boyfriend beat you and cracked your ribs? Take care of it yourself. Why should we have to pay for your bad decisions? I could go on and on with this and cover every malady that affects mankind.

It's the reason we form a society to begin with. To take care of each other. To protect each other. In turn we are taken care of and protected. What a concept!

[yallerdawg]

26. Is the concept of the 'Nanny State"...

Republican or Democratic?

Should our society be organized to allow "Do what thou wilt" and we'll muddle through together?

Or we'll agree to restrictions on personal behavior for the common good and general welfare?

[sunnystarr]

28. We already agree

Last edited Wed Sep 3, 2014, 05:53 PM - Edit history (1)

to restrictions on personal behavior for the common good and general welfare.

It's called laws.

[yallerdawg]

32. By law we are now required to purchase health insurance.

Cancers, heart disease, obesity, diabetes - medical costs that can be associated with personal choice - are now by law shared by all.

What responsibility should I have for my choices, and what responsibility as a society do we have?

In fact, on the private health insurance exchanges, if you smoke you pay more for health insurance, as allowed by law. Why wouldn't behaviors regarding personal food choices (and availability and affordability) not soon follow? Why wouldn't medical conditions be identified as anti-social personal behavior?

And why wouldn't we celebrate a better, safer, healthier world?

Would we call this democracy or fascism?

[sunnystarr]

33. Sounds like facism to me ...

and if you're against Obamacare you're on the wrong forum.

[yallerdawg]

34. I celebrate the Affordable Care Act!

It's a good first step.

Optimal is non-profit federally-funded Medicare for all, universal coverage birth to earth (but where's the profit in that, the opponents say?).

You keep suggesting I am a right-winger. Far from it. I am pointing out how we are already being required to pay for our self-indulgent behaviors, for being human as you call it.

I don't equate smoking with unemployment and domestic abuse. You do.

So when we pay for health insurance on the exchanges, smokers pay more. Why would we not expect other medically identified behaviors should not be under same conditions of coverage? Now you protest and call it fascism, the heavy hand of the state?

As in all things, be careful what you ask for or you just may get it. We all need to make concessions in order for this to work, I accept this. I understand the way the system is now, it is unsustainable if we continue to indulge ourselves in self-destructive behaviors. Not just healthcare, but so many other facets of life.

A corporation like CVS voluntarily discontinues an addictive profitable item for the greater good?

I applaud CVS. Just note sign of things to come.

[sunnystarr]

35. I never believed that smokers should pay more

and really don't trust that any corporation voluntarily discontinues an item for the greater good. Cigs probably aren't good for their bottom line which is the only criteria they use to make decisions.

[OnyxCollie]

14. Take away my beer and somebody's gonna get hurt.

You've been warned.

[candelista]

21. That's Legal Paternalism.

No thanks.

[LanternWaste]

27. No more and no less than traffic lights are...

No more and no less than traffic lights are...

[candelista]

29. High calorie foods are like traffic lights?

I don't think so. One is personal, the other, interpersonal. Resricting high calorie foods protects you from yourself; traffic lights protect people from each other.

Or did you read the post to which I replied? It said, "Then we can move on to take all high calorie foods off the shelves and eliminate ice cream and soda."

[lilithsrevenge12]

31. THANK YOU!!!!!

The only thing I could think when CVS Health (really?) announced they wouldn't sell cigarettes anymore was, "When you gonna ditch the snickers under the counter?"

But, then again, I am a smoker and was a bit bitter when one of the places that accepted the $1 pack coupons wouldn't sell cigarettes anymore...

[MH1]

39. You're making a funny (trying to anyway), but

I would damn sure be healthier AND happier if there were more good salad bars and fewer typical fast food joints.

If I don't take lunch early I would have to spend way too long in line at the one salad bar that's any good near my work, and end up eating something far less healthy that I can get quick.

[NYC Liberal]

50. We already tried alcohol prohibition. It was a dismal failure.

Getting rid of smoking in public places, on the other hand, has been a phenomenal success. Here in NY, smokers screamed that banning smoking in restaurants and bars would kill businesses. The opposite happened and business has thrived.

But that's talking about laws, which have nothing to do with this.

This is one private business making a decision about what to sell in its stores. Smoking is not necessary. If there are enough smokers then it will affect their business negatively. Or, maybe, just maybe, more people will quit smoking. I think the latter is far more likely. They've obviously done the math and they believe catering to smokers is no longer a viable business strategy. They're not just doing this out of the goodness of their hearts; if they believed not selling cigarettes would be bad for business, they would still be doing it.

[PatrynXX]

7. looked everywhere for Ritalin

once... only place that had it was CVS. they are usually very well stocked. I know CVS Caremark alot because it's on my savings card so if you have their lil savings card on your keychain and they send out a new one you'll notice it fast. I'd assume Walgreens fiasco might have helped give CVS an edge

[TBF]

9. Interestingly since Obamacare passed I see

urgent cares going up on nearly every corner here (growing suburb in Texas where people have good jobs). Despite all the boo-hooing from the republicans I sense that they have found a way to take advantage of whatever was in the Obamacare legislation. There must be something in there that favors urgent cares for these investments to be made. I have a feeling CVS is going with this approach for the same reason - there must be some pretty good tax benefits or something for them to go in this direction.

[justabob]

47. yeah... chain dental offices too

for some reason. I see them EVERYWHERE, along with the doc in the box places. I know just about everyone I know needs dental work, but I can't imagine that there is anything like that kind of demand for services.... Dental work still costs a small fortune.

[TBF]

48. I haven't seen those yet but I wouldn't be surprised

if that's not part of a long-term plan. They've got to placate the masses somehow and providing national health/dental is one thing they can do as they send our jobs overseas and continue to lower wages across the board.

[marble falls]

12. Good news from a corporation? I'm shocked.

[louis-t]

15. Oh man, Sudoku just makes me want to smoke more.

I hate those games.

[yellowwoodII]

19. Yea!

I already switched my one prescription from another pharmacy to CVS. I'm thrilled that they're stopping these sales early.

[Sunlei]

30. CVS wants to be 'healthcare providers' for insured persons /w the lowest quality ACA insurance?

Lots of Federal money to be collected in healthcare. The regs. for a clinic probably don't allow ciggie sales in a clinic waiting room.

Now if only CVS would get rid of the very bad quality, high-processed foods they sell. The foods with the 'we take snap cards' signs under them. The regs for any 'clinic' that gets Federal money shouldn't allow low quality food sales either.

[Cha]

40. WOW and WOW! Thanks Steve! :)

[RebelOne]

49. I buy my cigarettes at Walgreen's.

They are lot cheaper than anywhere else. I just hope Walgreen's doesn't stop selling tobacco products.