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: BoardBuzz: NSBA's Daily Weblog

Not so smokin' anymore

USA Today recently reported on cigarette sales in retail chains, including pharmacies. Officials in San Francisco, New York, New Hampshire, Illinois and Tennessee are proposing bans selling tobacco products in drug stores, including cigars, pipes, and smokeless tobacco. The sale of tobacco, which is both addictive and deadly when used as the manufacturer intends, has long been seen as incongruous with the health-promoting mission of pharmacies and drug stores. The New York Times reported on the controversy back in 1994, when some pharmacy students suggested replacing cigarette sales with cessation clinics in pharmacies! Hard to believe that this hasn?t been resolved more than 14 years later? Perhaps ? but it?s also hard to believe that tobacco is still the leading preventable cause of death in the United States, and that more than 20 percent of the adult population still smokes. Nearly 90 percent of smokers started smoking before the age of 18, so we?re talking about sparing kids a lifetime of addiction and disease. Chains like Wegmans grocery stores are setting a great example, voluntarily taking cigs off their shelves ? if all the chains did that, perhaps state and local government wouldn?t need to step in!

Full post as published by BoardBuzz: NSBA's Daily Weblog on May 21, 2008 (boomark / email).