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  • CVS To Stop Selling All Tobacco Products

    CVS To Stop Selling All Tobacco Products

    The luxury of being able to purchase your cigarettes, while picking up your prescriptions, will soon come to an end. CVS Caremark made an announcement, on Wednesday, stating that, as of October 1, 2014, they will no longer be selling cigarettes or any other tobacco product at their 7,600 CVS/pharmacy stores.

    The decision to end tobacco sales is monumental, as they will be the first national pharmacy chain to do so. Currently, CVS is the second largest national pharmacy chain, next only to Walgreen Co. The final decision was not made lightly, and comes from years of pressure from health care organizations and other medical providers to remove tobacco products from the store.

    “Ending the sale of cigarettes and tobacco products at CVS/pharmacy is the right thing for us to do for our customers and our company to help people on their path to better health,” Larry J. Merlo, the president and CEO of CVS Caremark, said in a statement. “Put simply, the sale of tobacco products is inconsistent with our purpose.”

    The move came, in part, to establish a stronger position as a health care provider. However, by doing this, CVS will be giving up approximately $2 billion in revenue from tobacco purchasers. This number is equivalent to an estimated 1.6 percent of the revenue in 2012.

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    CVS is the first large retailer to forbid tobacco sales since Target made their announcement to stop selling tobacco products in 1996. CVS is receiving positive feedback from those in the healthcare industry, and is being looked at as a role model for other large retailers.

    “This is an important, bold public health decision by a major retail pharmacy to act on the long understood reality that blending providing health care and providing cigarettes just doesn’t match,” said Dr. Richard Wender, the chief cancer control officer at the American Cancer Society.

    To fill the void of the tobacco sales, CVS plans to launch a smoking cessation program in the Spring that will offer information and treatments for those smokers who are trying to quit.

    “As a leader of the health care community focused on improving health outcomes, we are pledging to help millions of Americans quit smoking,” said Merlo. “In addition to removing cigarettes and tobacco products for sale, we will undertake a robust national smoking cessation program.”

    Image via Wikimedia Commons, Twitter

  • Paula Deen Loses Sears, Kmart, Walgreen

    Paula Deen Loses Sears, Kmart, Walgreen

    Paula Deen’s empire seems to be crumbling faster and faster. After losing Walmart, Smithfield Foods, Novo Nordisk, and her Food Network show, Paula was probably hoping the week would just end and spare her any more bloodletting. But today Sears Holdings announced that they were also cutting Paula’s apron strings. That lost her Sears and Kmart. And before the day was over, Walgreen Co. also piled on.

    Paula Deen’s admission in a deposition that she had once used the “n-word” (not “non-stick”; the other one), has caused a landslide that sent business partners running from her even faster than Rush Limbaugh’s “slut” branding.

    Pundits are more divided over this issue than the Trayvon Martin case that runs parallel with it this week. While the Zimmerman killing of Martin should come down to an evidence-based consideration of whether or not one man killed another man without good reason, the Deen case is all about the court of public opinion right now. The civil suit against her and her brother will come later.

    One of the Deen quotes that her detractors hang around her neck a lot is when she was asked if she had ever used the “n-word”. She answered, “Yes, of course. (But) it’s been a very long time.”

    That “of course” has been read as some clouded understanding on Deen’s part that it should be expected that people would use that word. But one of the people who has weighed in on the matter is the former president of the Cleveland County, North Carolina chapter of the NAACP. Willie McIntosh points out that Deen is 66 years old, and she grew up in Georgia during the Jim Crow era. To think that she might not have ever used the “n-word” is silly.

    “Any time you use racial slurs or derogatory remarks about anyone, I think that’s wrong,” he said. “But to think no one has ever said any of those words would be naïve. No one but Deen knows how sorry she truly feels, but all anyone can do is take her remorse at face value.”

    So far, few people seem to have been willing to do so. Businesses are running from her, at least for now.