Drug chain takes lead in fight against tobacco

It seems like a no-brainer.

Why should a business built on helping people get healthy sell a product that is one of the leading causes of illness in the country?

But that's exactly what the second biggest drugstore chain in the nation will continue to do until Oct. 1, when CVS Caremark will finally have pulled all tobacco products from the shelves of its 7,600 pharmacies.

CVS has 26,000 pharmacists and nurse practitioners who work to help customers deal with maladies like high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol -- does it make sense for the same store to enable those same customers to damage their health?

Not according to CVS President Helena Foulkes, who sees selling tobacco as "very inconsistent" with being in the health care business.

It wasn't a decision to be taken lightly, however, and Foulkes will have to prove to company directors and stockholders that losing $2 billion in tobacco sales a year will be good for the company in the long run.

California and Massachusetts have banned tobacco sales at all pharmacies, and the American Pharmacists Association asked for a ban on sales in 2010, including grocery stores that have pharmacies.

Foulkes is right that it's inconsistent for a pharmacy to promote health with one hand and selling tobacco with the other.

But it's not uncommon for people involved in health care -- doctors, nurses, nurses aids, EMTs and paramedics -- to use tobacco on long overnight shifts and in response to the pressure of their jobs.

It's only recently that hospitals and clinics have banned smoking from their property.

Smoking has dropped from 42 percent of adults in 1965 to 18 percent today, and with taxes up and smoking banned from airports, bars and federal buildings, seven out of 10 smokers would like to stop.

Still, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association, 42 million people smoke and 16 million are sick because of tobacco use.

The issue of smoking takes on more urgency with the advent of the Affordable Care Act and the added expense taken on by the government, i.e. taxpayers.

While President Obama, himself a former smoker, praised CVS Caremark for its move to drop tobacco, Obama will sign a farm bill that, while it ends direct payments to all farmers, apparently still subsidizes crop insurance for growers of tobacco along with other crops.

America has a mixed record on restricting harmful substances -- alcohol and marijuana among them.

Like the others, however, we still have a long way to go when it comes to delivering a consistent message about tobacco.