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CVS becomes first big US drugstore chain to drop tobacco

reinoe said:
I'm surprised a libertarian is struggling to understand the PR move of not selling tobacco. Perhaps it's time you changed your lean?
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No, this is all pretty transparent. They weren't getting the returns they wanted from tobacco products, but instead of just taking it off the shelves quietly they figured they could take advantage of the fact that more people than not are against smoking in the hope it would drum up business.
 
Peter King said:
That is your opinion, they have a different opinion and they have the right to choose to put ethics before profit. A lot of companies do that and I applaud that. You may feel it is bad business but if I would live in a town with a CVS I would go and shop there because I feel they are on the right track.
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No, they don't. This has nothing to do with them following their ethical principles, but with them not making enough money on tobacco products and them understanding that people like you would do business with them if you thought their decision to not sell tobacco products had to do with making ethical business decisions.
 
There is a lot that goes into selling cigarettes, lots gets stolen, and there are tax stamp issues etc, and I think the billions is gross not net. Just a buisness decision I bet, not Obama forcing them to.
 
HenryChinaski said:
Right Wingers should be applauding that a private business is making their own decisions.
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I know, and just on the eve when pot is becoming legal everywhere. :lol:
 
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TurtleDude said:
CVS becomes first big U.S. drugstore chain to drop tobacco | Reuters

Might cost them millions or even billions a year but their CEO (I just heard him speak) said it was the right thing.
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Here in Canada, drug stores have been barred from selling tobacco products for decades with little effect on their bottom lines, in the long run - the transition was difficult but nobody mentions it now.

Wouldn't suprise me if CVS is simply looking at their long-term business model and deciding to replace tobacco with medical and recreational marijuana in the future and needed the shelf space.
 
apdst said:
Something you have to take into consideration, are the sales of other products that will drop when tobacco buyers go elsewhere. Most buyers didn't come into CVS just to buy tobacco; they would probably purchase other products as well, whether it be intentional, or impulse purchases. How many tabacco buyers brought their kids with them? It's damn near impossible to bring a kid into any given store without buying a candy, or a coke.
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IIRC they figured they might lose another half billion or more from those extra sales.
 
This is interesting:

"CVS does not sell electronic cigarettes, the highly popular but debated devices that deliver nicotine without tobacco and emit a rapidly vanishing vapor instead of smoke. It said it was waiting for guidance on the devices from the Food and Drug Administration, which has expressed interest in regulating e-cigarettes."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/06/b...ales-of-tobacco-products-by-october.html?_r=0
 
specklebang said:
I'm sure large retailers get a better deal, but in the 80s I had a coffee shop in The Imperial Palace casino. We sold cigarettes and I remember the margins as being pretty low.

With a smoke shop every 500 feet I can't imagine who buys cigarettes in a CVS? I think they made a wise decision and they'll get credit for trailblazing. The cigarette market is dying off. The discount imports are hurting them.

They can barely advertise.

Every country, including ones notorious for smoking, are cracking down and restricting smokers spaces. Smokers are the new refugees of the 21st Century, in huddled masses, yearning to be able to light up. Every year new laws are passed moving smoking from parking lots, streets, parks, beaches to fewer areas. Smoking is no longer a joy, it is a burden.

Ecigs are the first alternative for addicts that works even better than the real thing. They will lose millions of customers just in the next few years to this phenomena alone. Vaping shops that don't sell cigarettes are springing up everywhere. Times they are a'changin.

Big Tobacco will be gone by the end of this century. I'm always right about these things.






If I'm wrong, dig me up and criticize me. :roll:
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Big tobacco WILL be gone, although you won't have to wait until the end of the century. The war on smokers (not saying its a bad thing) has really ratcheted up in the last decade. The restrictions are increasing daily. California nearly leads the way, but even into the rural enclave in which I live, a small bar deep in the woods, two miles from asphalt, no smoking. Not in your car in the parking lot at the hospital. Not in city parks, I won't start listing all the places where you can't smoke, the list where you can would be shorter. A friend of mine that smokes told me he was at a seminar and at break went to find a place to smoke, and there was just one, small area, around back of the hotel, in a nasty area, and he said when he got to it, huddled inside was 2-3 others in their suits smoking and they said, come on in here with the rest of us that are just one step above pedophiles. The crunch is definitely on.
 
It's up to the business to decide what to sell and not sell. I don't see this as a significant story. We don't shop at CVS.
 
CanadaJohn said:
Here in Canada, drug stores have been barred from selling tobacco products for decades with little effect on their bottom lines, in the long run - the transition was difficult but nobody mentions it now.

Wouldn't suprise me if CVS is simply looking at their long-term business model and deciding to replace tobacco with medical and recreational marijuana in the future and needed the shelf space.
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I caught on to the trend in the late nineties telling my wife back then, cigarette smoking is going to be illegal in America and marijauna is going to be legal. She laughed then, but she's beginning to believe it will be the case.
 
mak2 said:
There is a lot that goes into selling cigarettes, lots gets stolen, and there are tax stamp issues etc, and I think the billions is gross not net. Just a buisness decision I bet, not Obama forcing them to.
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Hell no it's not Obama. This has been trending for near two decades and will continue after Obama's gone regardless of who's in office. It's not just America either, there's other countries ahead of us and still others behind us. There's a thread up on Jordan and smoking right now. It is a nasty habit forming practice that causes horrible health and financial problems. Fires started along roadsides by the idiots that flick the but into the dry grassy shoulder on a windy August day. That lead to another carcinogen added to cause cigarettes to go out when laying idle. It's a good time for people to just quit!
 
Montecresto said:
Until they can't buy them there anymore either.
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You really don't know what you're talking about. Tobacco sales have been up and tobacco won't be banned as long as it brings in billions in tax revenue. In fact, if every smoker quit at once, there would be a huge revenue shortfall.
 
Still sell alcohol, frozen pizza, cookies. :p
 
joko104 said:
It's up to the business to decide what to sell and not sell. I don't see this as a significant story. We don't shop at CVS.
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I think its significant proof that we dont need govt to control us. If people dont like cigs, businesses wont sell them. If people dont want smoke in their restauraunts, restauraunts will ban them themselves. We dont need a nanny state to tell us what to do.
 
Peter King said:
But medicine is meant to cure people, stop pain or be beneficial to the people who use it, smoking products do the opposite, they kill you.
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And junk food doesn't?
 
X Factor said:
You really don't know what you're talking about. Tobacco sales have been up and tobacco won't be banned as long as it brings in billions in tax revenue. In fact, if every smoker quit at once, there would be a huge revenue shortfall.
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Must you be so cocky right out of the shoot this morning??

The smoking rate among adults in the United States has dropped again, an encouraging trend that experts on smoking cessation attribute to public policies like smoke-free air laws and cigarette taxes, as well as media campaigns and less exposure to smoking in movies.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/25/why-smoking-rates-are-at-new-lows/

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/06/us-usa-smoking-idUSTRE7854CG20110906

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/23/smoking-cigarettes-rate_n_1823251.html

http://www.webmd.com/smoking-cessation/news/20081113/smoking-rate-is-declining-in-us
 
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mak2 said:
There is a lot that goes into selling cigarettes, lots gets stolen, and there are tax stamp issues etc, and I think the billions is gross not net. Just a buisness decision I bet, not Obama forcing them to.
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Why do people think Obama is forcing anyone to do this. Obama is a smoker (or was until a couple months ago).
 
Superfly said:
Why do people think Obama is forcing anyone to do this. Obama is a smoker (or was until a couple months ago).
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Simple enough, to die hard Republicans the president is evil, to die hard Democrats he is a Saint. Neither are able to see through their deep colored red or blue glasses that the president is neither. I believe the CEO of CVS did it because he thought it was the right thing to do.
 
Perotista said:
Simple enough, to die hard Republicans the president is evil, to die hard Democrats he is a Saint. Neither are able to see through their deep colored red or blue glasses that the president is neither. I believe the CEO of CVS did it because he thought it was the right thing to do.
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Right for certain on the first! The latter remains to be seen, but that's what he said. Of course, right thing to do for the health of Americans, right thing to do for the health of the company, right thing to do because its his personal conviction??
 
Montecresto said:
Right for certain on the first! The latter remains to be seen, but that's what he said. Of course, right thing to do for the health of Americans, right thing to do for the health of the company, right thing to do because its his personal conviction??
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The wife and me have used CVS for the last three years for our prescription and that store has never sold tobacco. It was just recently built and opened when we started to use it. So either it was the store manager decision not to sell tobacco or CVS had made the decision not to sell it in their newly open stores from that time forward. I don't know. If it is the later, his decision had been in the works for awhile before he announced it.
 
Montecresto said:
Big tobacco WILL be gone, although you won't have to wait until the end of the century.
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Big tobacco, at least here in Canada, has been diversifying for some time now - they won't be gone anytime soon, for two very good reasons. 1. The tax revenue from tobacco sales keeps many jurisdictions in revenue, and 2. Who better to take over large scale production and distribution of medical and recreational marijuana.
 
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