Ship of Fools: Should Pharmacies Stop Selling Tobacco?

Thread: Should Pharmacies Stop Selling Tobacco? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Squirrel (# 3040) on :

Recently the huge CVS chain of pharmacies announced that they would stop selling cigarettes. And there has been increasing pressure from the legal community for other drug stores to do likewise. I say "Hooray!"

While pharmacies in the USA are typically for-profit businesses, they are still highly-regulated, and are viewed to some extent as health care providers, to the point where, in some states, you can actually be treated for medical problems by a physician's assistant or nurse practitioner, or receive a vaccination from a pharmacist, in such an establishment. Yet most pharmacies here continue to have big displays of cigarettes, highly-addictive products that kill thousands of people a year, right up front by the cashiers.

I'll admit to a huge bias against the tobacco industry- my mother died a horrible death from lung cancer on account of her addiction to cigarettes. As far as I am concerned, anything legal that makes it harder for Big Tobacco to market its wares is worth supporting -particularly when it comes to banning their sale in places entrusted with promoting health.

Posted by PaulBC (# 13712) on :

Kudos to CVS NO pharmacey should sell tobacco products .

Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on :

My father's pharmacy stopped selling tobacco almost 30 years ago this month. He was muttering underneath his breath as he did so, as they were a nice profit margin and as he used to liberate his own smokes from the cigarette shelf, but he did it willingly and was the first in our home town to go smokefree.

Posted by LQ (# 11596) on :

Wow, is this really common in the U.S.? Talk about a rôle confusion!

Posted by Nicolemr (# 28) on :

I'd like to see pharmacies stop selling tobacco products. But I doubt it would make any difference in smoking rates, there's just to many other places to get cigarettes.

Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on :

We old folk remember when it was common in Canada. In the 1980s and 1990s provincial pharmacy associations agreed with health ministries that it was just too much of a contradiction in terms and it came to an end.

My younger friends cannot imagine the smoke-infused world. Last night I was at the 20th anniversary of my local coffeehouse which, when it opened, was the only smoke-free café in Ottawa. Everyone told the owners that the smart money had it that nobody, just nobody, would have their coffee without a cigarette, and that they would soon go bellyup. We toasted the smart money with cava last night.

Posted by LQ (# 11596) on :

I still laugh when flights announce that smoking is not permitted. When was the last time any airline allowed it?

Posted by Macrina (# 8807) on :

There are pharmacies that sell tobacco?? Wow...I can't imagine that, such a mixed message to send people.

Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :

I read some analysis when CVS announced this was happening. Part of this is they are aggressively expanding their drop-in health clinic service. See a doctor or a P.A. for minor medical services without the expense of a hospital or full medical service. They are negotiating with several large insurance companies to be a preferred provider. The cigarette business didn't really fit well with trying to become a medical establishment.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

Apparently the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain ordered pharmacies to stop stocking tobacco in 1987, but it was still possible to buy tobacco products in some pharmacies until 2001. More than you ever wanted to know about the history of smoking and pharmacies (pdf)

Isn't part of the confusion because tobacco was used as a medicinal treatment? It wasn't until 1962 that a report was published showing the links between smoking and ill-health following Richard Doll's research.

Posted by bib (# 13074) on :

I am shocked that any pharmacies sell tobacco products. They certainly don't in Australia. Which countries allow the sale of cigarettes in pharmacies?

Posted by romanlion (# 10325) on :

Yeah, throw out those nasty tobacco products and stick to peddling the safe stuff like oxycodone and all manner of psychotropics.

Doctor's orders, ya know!

Posted by Siegfried (# 29) on :

quote:
Originally posted by romanlion:
Yeah, throw out those nasty tobacco products and stick to peddling the safe stuff like oxycodone and all manner of psychotropics.

Doctor's orders, ya know!

Apples and elephants, dear.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

A quick bit of googling discovered that people have been agitating for an end to tobacco in pharmacies since at least 1970.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by romanlion:
Yeah, throw out those nasty tobacco products and stick to peddling the safe stuff like oxycodone and all manner of psychotropics.

Doctor's orders, ya know!

A proper system involves dangerous stuff only being available by prescription. Which negates pharmacists being able to 'peddle' anything.

I've no idea just what the situation is in the USA in this regard. On the one hand, I couldn't get my usual travel-sickness medication in the USA because there it's a prescription-only medicine. On the other hand, you have those bizarrely amusing adverts that try to weave vast amounts of legally required warnings into a cheery ad about how much this drug will improve your life.

[ 24. June 2014, 13:29: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :

What LQ, bib and others have said re the utter incongruity of the OP question in the 21st century...

Posted by Bishops Finger (# 5430) on :

*Genuine question*

Have pharmacies in the UK ever sold tobacco products? I'm 63 this year, and I can't say I've ever seen them in a 'chemist's shop' (UK-speak from a previous generation)!

Ian J.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

Yes - see the link in my earlier post. There used to be asthma cigarettes, for example. Apparently you could still buy tobacco products in some GB pharmacies until 2001, although the advice to stop stocking them was issued in 1987.

I was going to say something similar to you, but thought I'd check first, to find that there is a long history of tobacco being seen as medicinal.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Bishops Finger:
*Genuine question*

Have pharmacies in the UK ever sold tobacco products? I'm 63 this year, and I can't say I've ever seen them in a 'chemist's shop' (UK-speak from a previous generation)!

Ian J.

Yes - I'd like to know that as well (a year younger that B's F)

My mother used to say that doctors encouraged her to smoke 'because it is good for you' - she smoked up until her waters broke and I came along - which may explain a thing or two!

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

Leo, that question has now been answered twice on this very thread by Curiosity killed.

[ 24. June 2014, 15:50: Message edited by: Gwai ]

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

Pharmacies cannot sell tobacco in Canada except for in British Columbia as far as I know. So the point is mostly moot. Gas stations sell them, which creates easy access.

Many places in Canada, stores which sell cigarettes and other products must not display them where they can be seen, they are out of sight. No advertising allowed either.

Posted by stonespring (# 15530) on :

Note to people not from the US: CVS is much more than a pharmacy chain. It is much more like a combination of pharmacy, mini-supermarket, convenience store, newsstand, etc.

There are also pharmacies in full-fledged supermarkets, Wal-Mart and other big box stores, etc. These places often not only sell tobacco products, but alcoholic beverages as well. The pharmacy section is just part of the store like the deli counter, dairy department, home electronics department, etc. The cigarettes are never sold behind the pharmacy counter but at the check-out counter of the main part of the store. Even in CVS (and Wallgreens, Rite-Aid, etc.), the pharmacy department is small compared to the rest of the store. Should supermarkets stop selling beer?

That said, I'm not opposed to CVS's decision. Having had a brief experience working in the industry of paying for cancer treatment (paying for it is an industry in itself), I can say that we need to do all we can to discourage smoking.

[ 24. June 2014, 16:10: Message edited by: stonespring ]

Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:
We old folk remember when it was common in Canada. In the 1980s and 1990s provincial pharmacy associations agreed with health ministries that it was just too much of a contradiction in terms and it came to an end.

My younger friends cannot imagine the smoke-infused world. Last night I was at the 20th anniversary of my local coffeehouse which, when it opened, was the only smoke-free café in Ottawa. Everyone told the owners that the smart money had it that nobody, just nobody, would have their coffee without a cigarette, and that they would soon go bellyup. We toasted the smart money with cava last night.

I'm just told enough to remember that smoky world. (I'm a few years older than LQ.) For those of us with allergies, it was nasty. I remember the old days when the non-smoking section at McDonald's was the long room beside the kitchen leading to the washrooms; the smoking section with tin ashtrays was out front with the big windows. This assumes the standard suburban McDonald's layout, the company had a standard design.

Then McDonald's decided that since smokers were now a minority, the non-smokers could have the front of restaurant seats with the big windows. And then they went entirely smoke-free as municipalities enacted smoke-free bylaws in the last 1990's.

I even remember tobacco in pharmacies. My pharmacy, which is a pharmacy counter in a bigger store still technically sells tobacco because the store sells it, though the tobacco counter is now a separate entrance from outside and there is no access to it for customers from the rest of the store.

Posted by Mere Nick (# 11827) on :

I'd leave it up to the owners of the pharmacy to decide what they sell. I pick up one of my prescriptions at a Walmart pharmacy and another at an Ingles grocery store pharmacy. Both of them also sell tobacco, beer and wine. At the Walmart I can also pick up guns and ammo.

Posted by lapsed heathen (# 4403) on :

I remember them selling herbal cigs at one stage, back when we didn't think it was the smoke part that was bad. God knows what we thought was bad about smoking but seemingly it wasn't the actual smoke.
I don't like this trick of switching the term from smoking to tobacco products. Smokeless tobacco products are not as damaging as smoking and this conflagration of the two dose more harm than good.

Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :

As for drugstores selling cigarettes, there are commercials and ads for cigarettes in the 1850's that say "recommended by doctors" or "more doctors smoke xxx". It was a different attitude.

In many places, drugstores had an exemption from the Sunday closing blue laws. One explanation for the origin of the name ice cream sundae was that it was made when carbonated soda was not allowed on Sundays. So the drugstore provided a place to buy more cigarettes on Sunday, something important to a heavy smoker.

The other place that sold cigarettes in New York were "candy stores" which also served ice cream, candy and sold newspapers and magazines.

[ 24. June 2014, 21:26: Message edited by: Palimpsest ]

Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :

I don't ever remember our local chemist selling cigarettes, certainly my mother, quite a heavy smoker never bought hers there.

Anyone buying cigarettes or alcohol at a supermarket here has to be checked by a senior member of staff, and if they look under 25 ID will be demanded (legal age is 16 for tobacco, 18 for alcohol). This is supermarket policy as being caught selling underage means having the license to sell suspended for a number of days.

Cigarettes are out of the customers' sight and no posters advertising their sale are allowed to be displayed.

There is also quite a stiff tax on the sale of cigarettes and I think the duty-free allowance for travellers overseas has been heavily cut in recent years.

Huia

Posted by Gracious rebel (# 3523) on :

You can't buy cigarettes in pharmacies in the UK, but you certainly can buy e-cigarettes.

Does this give a certain 'health' message to these products?

Posted by The5thMary (# 12953) on :

Our ex-roommate/girlfriend smokes like the proverbial smokestack. She smokes at her new apartment but is trying to get into public housing, first in Georgia and then she is yearning to move back to California. Well, I don't know about California but every single low-income public housing building and apartment in Seattle is now completely smoke-free. I am VERY happy that CVS and other drug stores in the U.S. are going to get out of the cigarette business. Dare we hope that in fifty years there won't be anyone smoking except in their own houses?

Posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe (# 5521) on :

quote:
Originally posted by The5thMary:
every single low-income public housing building and apartment in Seattle is now completely smoke-free.

How do they enforce it inside of one's apartment?

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mere Nick:
I'd leave it up to the owners of the pharmacy to decide what they sell. I pick up one of my prescriptions at a Walmart pharmacy and another at an Ingles grocery store pharmacy. Both of them also sell tobacco, beer and wine. At the Walmart I can also pick up guns and ammo.

I think the very fact you can have a pharmacy inside another store is something a little different in the USA compared to other countries.

I'd have to go hunting down the relevant laws to be certain whether such a thing is even possible here in Australia, but I suspect not as the location of pharmacies is fairly regulated. At one time at least (and it may still be the case), you couldn't open up a new pharmacy within a certain distance of an existing pharmacy. I once saw a case where they were arguing about whether people would walk down a path or cut across open ground, because the answer would determine whether the new pharmacy was too close.

[ 25. June 2014, 04:06: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by GCabot (# 18074) on :

I would argue that there are certain benefits to having tobacco available at pharmacies (in the American sense). Someone addicted to nicotine is going to seek out tobacco products. If the most convenient location is a pharmacy like CVS, the health professionals therein can use the opportunity to promote methods of cessation/prevention. Now, consumers will simply purchase tobacco products elsewhere, where there is unlikely to be the same incentive to stop addiction.

quote:
Originally posted by Gracious rebel:
You can't buy cigarettes in pharmacies in the UK, but you certainly can buy e-cigarettes.

Does this give a certain 'health' message to these products?

I thought there were legitimate studies showing that they were useful for the purposes of smoking cessation?

Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :

The articles I've read say that the jury is out on whether e-cigarettes help smokers stop smoking or if they are a transition drug for non-smokers to become smokers. I think they are new enough that there are simply not enough studies to make any useful conclusions with existing smokers, patch users and e-cigarette only users.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by GCabot:
I would argue that there are certain benefits to having tobacco available at pharmacies (in the American sense). Someone addicted to nicotine is going to seek out tobacco products. If the most convenient location is a pharmacy like CVS, the health professionals therein can use the opportunity to promote methods of cessation/prevention.

How's it working so far?

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

The UK has big supermarkets with pharmacies and tobacco counters (locked with shutters, no advertising), so it's not just the USA.

Another argument I read when I was digging for information was that the big pharmacies, eg Boots, sell Coca Cola which has had some links to adverse health effects. But tobacco is the only drug that when used exactly as designed has known ill effects.

e-cigarettes are sold in pharmacies here in the UK too. There were stories saying that this had resumed after they were removed for a while when I looked.

Posted by GCabot (# 18074) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:
Originally posted by GCabot:
I would argue that there are certain benefits to having tobacco available at pharmacies (in the American sense). Someone addicted to nicotine is going to seek out tobacco products. If the most convenient location is a pharmacy like CVS, the health professionals therein can use the opportunity to promote methods of cessation/prevention.
How's it working so far?

Smoking rates in the U.S. have continuously been on the decline for decades now. As to what the effect will be now that pharmacies are removing tobacco products from their shelves, I guess we shall see.

Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
I think the very fact you can have a pharmacy inside another store is something a little different in the USA compared to other countries.

In NZ we used to have similar laws, but the re-built and newly reopened Countdown supermarket down the road from me has a pharmacy in it, despite being close to an existing one. I don't know when the law changed, but I think it was lobbying from big business that changed it.

Huia

Posted by Dave W. (# 8765) on :

quote:
Originally posted by GCabot:
I would argue that there are certain benefits to having tobacco available at pharmacies (in the American sense). Someone addicted to nicotine is going to seek out tobacco products. If the most convenient location is a pharmacy like CVS, the health professionals therein can use the opportunity to promote methods of cessation/prevention.

Given the separation between the pharmacy counter and the rest of the convenience store parts of a CVS (as described by stonespring above), this seems a very unlikely scenario to me.

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

quote:
Originally posted by GCabot:

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:
Originally posted by GCabot:
I would argue that there are certain benefits to having tobacco available at pharmacies (in the American sense). Someone addicted to nicotine is going to seek out tobacco products. If the most convenient location is a pharmacy like CVS, the health professionals therein can use the opportunity to promote methods of cessation/prevention.
How's it working so far?
Smoking rates in the U.S. have continuously been on the decline for decades now. As to what the effect will be now that pharmacies are removing tobacco products from their shelves, I guess we shall see.

And it's certainly true that CVS kept smoking cessation products right next to the cigarettes because I used to see both when I went into CVS to buy a snack. (Past tense because I haven't been in that CVS in years.)

Posted by HCH (# 14313) on :

I am sometimes surprise that people can afford to buy tobacco. In the store down the street, a Walgreen's (which includes a pharmacy), a pack of cigarettes may cost as much as $6.00. A person who smokes a pack a day must spend over $2000 annually. That seems like a lot of money to me. Even more confusing is that (as I have heard it claimed) smokers tend to be less affluent, less educated individuals. If you don't have much money, why spend it on something you will simply burn?

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

Originally posted by Curiosity killed:

quote:
It wasn't until 1962 that a report was published showing the links between smoking and ill-health following Richard Doll's research.

I've read this before. However, in the early C20th schoolchildren were advised that smoking could damage their health. Was it believed that tobacco was harmful to children, but healthy for adults? The advice to schoolchildren predates Richard Doll's research by decades.

Posted by HCH (# 14313) on :

In the 1940s, Robert Heinlein wrote "If This Goes On", a science fiction novel, in which he refers to the link between smoking and lung cancer. I think this was known even earlier.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

I was quoting from the Pharmaceutical Society booklet linked above.

From the same booklet:

nicotine was recognised as a poisonous alkaloid from 1828
an advertisement for Nutt Brothers Pectoral Cigarettes which were marketed between 1877 and 1893 and could "be smoked by the most delicate lady or child"

which all sounds a bit contradictory.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

Like others, I cannot recall tobacco products ever being sold in pharmacies here.

Smoking here is becoming less and less common fortunately. Tobacco products can now only be sold in plain wrappers/packets and must carry one of a series of fairly blunt health warnings. They may only be sold at one place in a shop with multiple sales points, and cannot be on show - they must be behind plain doors. It is banned in public transport facilities and on buses, trains, ferries and on planes; it is banned in shopping malls (in the US sense), restaurants, pubs and bars. It is also banned on many footpaths in the vicinity of cafés, coffee shops and outdoor eating spots.

Smoking is now very much class-linked. New smokers are more likely to be young women than young men. From observation, a higher proportion of those from East-Asian origin or family background are smokers than Caucasian.

Posted by The5thMary (# 12953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:

quote:
Originally posted by The5thMary:
every single low-income public housing building and apartment in Seattle is now completely smoke-free.
How do they enforce it inside of one's apartment?

Well, when I lived in Seattle Public Housing back in the nineties, we had a yearly inspection of our units. I know the housing authority can inspect anyone's unit legally if they give the tenant 24 hours notice. But you know, having posted what I did previously, I'll have to go back and check to see what their rules are for each apartment.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by HCH:
I am sometimes surprise that people can afford to buy tobacco. In the store down the street, a Walgreen's (which includes a pharmacy), a pack of cigarettes may cost as much as $6.00. A person who smokes a pack a day must spend over $2000 annually. That seems like a lot of money to me. Even more confusing is that (as I have heard it claimed) smokers tend to be less affluent, less educated individuals. If you don't have much money, why spend it on something you will simply burn?

Addiction.

Posted by The5thMary (# 12953) on :

Amanda B: Check out the eight and ninth paragraphs from this article. It's informative and makes me even more eager to pack up and move back to the Seattle area.

http://www.seattlehousing.org/news/releases/2011/liph-no-smoking-survey/index.html

Posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe (# 5521) on :

quote:
Almost half, or 45 percent of respondents, have experienced smoke drift in their home either from a neighboring unit or from outside and 72 percent noted the smell of secondhand smoke as bothersome.

Reminds me of the bad old days when I lived in an apartment building, especially one where the tenant directly under me smoked like a chimney and her foul emissions seeped up through my floorboards and into my bath linens, bed linens and clothes in the closet.

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
The UK has big supermarkets with pharmacies and tobacco counters (locked with shutters, no advertising), so it's not just the USA.

Another argument I read when I was digging for information was that the big pharmacies, eg Boots, sell Coca Cola which has had some links to adverse health effects. But tobacco is the only drug that when used exactly as designed has known ill effects.

e-cigarettes are sold in pharmacies here in the UK too. There were stories saying that this had resumed after they were removed for a while when I looked.

IME supermarkets big enough to have pharmacies have them far away from where they sell tobacco products, which is usually on a smaller checkout near ready-to-eat lunch/snack food like sandwich meal deals, normally near the entrance. I've never been to a supermarket that has a pharmacy near there.

Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
The UK has big supermarkets with pharmacies and tobacco counters (locked with shutters, no advertising), so it's not just the USA.

It's been a few years since I lived in England, but I don't recall any big UK supermarkets doing this. But admittedly when I think of 'pharmacy' I think of 'dispensing chemist', not an aisle, between the sat-navs and the baked beans, selling unclassified and non-controlled pain-killers or haemmorhoid cream. I certainly can't recall any chemist selling ciggies, even in the olden days. Though they certainly flogged a lot of other rubbish: 'diet' products like Limmits and Ayds and other stuff designed to make women hate their bodies (ahem!). And it's a good question about the sale of e-cigarettes in chemists, if that happens in the UK. I imagine it does, along with the Niquitin and similar products?

I do recall my granny telling me that a doctor once told her he would have recommended her to lose weight by taking up the fags - except they were too dangerous, and she'd probably die of smoking-related cancer before she died of obesity. And that was the early 60s apparently. Perhaps an unusual attitude in those days.

Posted by Mere Nick (# 11827) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anselmina:
It's been a few years since I lived in England, but I don't recall any big UK supermarkets doing this. But admittedly when I think of 'pharmacy' I think of 'dispensing chemist', not an aisle, between the sat-navs and the baked beans, selling unclassified and non-controlled pain-killers or haemmorhoid cream.

The ones I'm talking about are pharmacies as you describe them. Dr's prescription needed.

Posted by ecumaniac (# 376) on :

quote:
Originally posted by HCH:
I am sometimes surprise that people can afford to buy tobacco. In the store down the street, a Walgreen's (which includes a pharmacy), a pack of cigarettes may cost as much as $6.00. A person who smokes a pack a day must spend over $2000 annually. That seems like a lot of money to me. Even more confusing is that (as I have heard it claimed) smokers tend to be less affluent, less educated individuals. If you don't have much money, why spend it on something you will simply burn?

Maybe it gives them a momentary pleasure that the affluent would gain from more expensive things like eating in restaurants, cooking with gourmet organic food, going on holidays, visiting the theatre or purchasing novels.

Also, addiction.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

The really big supermarkets with pharmacy sections have what looks like a shop within a shop. That counter is locked up when the pharmacist is not on duty - and yes, the tobacco kiosk is usually by the entrance, the pharmacy counter inside some way.

Boots and the other big pharmacies are back selling e-cigarettes along with other products to help give up smoking.

Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
The really big supermarkets with pharmacy sections have what looks like a shop within a shop. That counter is locked up when the pharmacist is not on duty - and yes, the tobacco kiosk is usually by the entrance, the pharmacy counter inside some way.

You'll forgive me, I'm sure, for asking. Which UK supermarkets dispense prescriptions for medicines and also sell cigarettes? I know they all flog fags, of course - but can't think of any who have a pharmacist dispensing drugs. I'm not doubting you. I'm just truly unaware of any who do this. Mind you, I tend to go into tunnel-vision mode when I go into those huge shops - or I'd never get my shopping done!

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

Tesco Superstores, ASDA and Sainsburys all have pharmacies in at least some of their stores. I haven't bothered checking the other big ones, thought three was enough links.

Posted by Dave W. (# 8765) on :

In case anyone is interested, here's the floor plan of a CVS store in San Francisco showing the pharmacy proper on the left (about 10% of the total floor area), the aisles which take up most of the space (about 25% beauty, 20% over-the-counter remedies, 15% greeting cards and stationery/magazines/books, and the remainder food, snacks, candy, alcohol, and general merchandise.)

Here's a view of the aisles in a CVS (the sign for the pharmacy is visible in the back) and here's a line of checkout stations with the tobacco products visible behind the counter on the right (and an ungodly amount of candy in front of the counter.)

Perhaps these will help convey what a "CVS pharmacy" is like. While I have had prescriptions filled at my local CVS, I estimate those occasions account for less than 5% of the times I've shopped there.

Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Tesco Superstores, ASDA and Sainsburys all have pharmacies in at least some of their stores. I haven't bothered checking the other big ones, thought three was enough links.

Well, I'm gormed. Very interesting! None here in Northern Ireland so far, but I believe there is at least one in the Republic of Ireland. I guess the Six Counties with a measly one and a half million is just not ready yet for additional drug dispensaries - but no doubt when the little guys go under, it'll make sense for the grocery giants to step in, as with electric goods, home-ware, spectacles etc.

Sorry for prolonging the tangent!

Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Squirrel:
Recently the huge CVS chain of pharmacies announced that they would stop selling cigarettes. And there has been increasing pressure from the legal community for other drug stores to do likewise. I say "Hooray!"

As a patron of the firm and one who has lost at least 5 blood relatives early due to the ravages of cigarettes, I say 'Bravo'! [Yipee]

Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on :

quote:
Originally posted by LQ:
I still laugh when flights announce that smoking is not permitted. When was the last time any airline allowed it?

Likely on Western Airlines in the US back in the early seventies when I got drunk on their bottomless glasses of champagne as a teenager and hid it well from my parents who collected me in LA. I wish I'd smoked cigars then! Never did have the bad judgement to smoke ciggies at any time. ( See earlier post above. )

Posted by Dave W. (# 8765) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sir Kevin:

quote:
Originally posted by LQ:
I still laugh when flights announce that smoking is not permitted. When was the last time any airline allowed it?
Likely on Western Airlines in the US back in the early seventies when I got drunk on their bottomless glasses of champagne as a teenager and hid it well from my parents who collected me in LA. I wish I'd smoked cigars then! Never did have the bad judgement to smoke ciggies at any time. ( See earlier post above. )

The ban on smoking on US flights came much later than that - it was banned for domestic flights shorter than 2 hours only in 1988; the ban was extended to domestic flights of up to 6 hours in 1990, to all domestic flights in 1998, and to all flights by US airlines in 2000.

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