Regulators consider ban on tobacco sales in pharmacies
By Kay Lazar
| GLOBE STAFF
NOVEMBER 10, 2011
Massachusetts health regulators said yesterday that they will consider banning the sale of tobacco products at pharmacies across the state, a prohibition that, officials believe, would make Massachusetts the first to take such action.
The proposal would mirror regulations already in place in 19 communities in Massachusetts, including Boston, Worcester, Lowell, and New Bedford, officials said. Brookline is scheduled to vote on the issue in a town meeting next week.
“I see a real hypocrisy in having to fill your prescription for a smoking cessation product and having to walk by all the counters with cigarettes,’’ said Dr. Alan Woodward, past president of the Massachusetts Medical Society and a member of the state Public Health Council, an appointed panel of doctors, consumer advocates, and professors.
“They are selling a product that, when used appropriately, is either going to kill you or will give you’’ chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Woodward said during a meeting of the council yesterday.Woodward, who proposed the ban, also chairs his local board of health in Concord, which is currently considering a similar tobacco prohibition.
A recent report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that despite decades of falling rates of smoking, the decline has slowed considerably in the past five years.
Roughly 20 percent of working adults in the United States smoke, the report said, with the highest rates among the poor, the uninsured, and those without a high school education.
Woodward said that state lawmakers have considered banning tobacco sales in pharmacies but have failed to act on the issue.
“We have now seen a bump up in the number of young smokers, so it’s time to consider what would be the appropriate next steps that have been successful in many communities,’’ he said.
Michael DeAngelis, spokesman for CVS/pharmacy, said in a statement that the sale of tobacco products is a challenging issue for the company because its pharmacies are health care providers.
“A percentage of our customers choose to use tobacco products, and they are legal for adults to purchase,’’ he said. “We make these products available for the convenience of our adult customers, but we do not advertise or promote them.’’
He said cigarettes are placed behind the counter so customers must ask for them, and they are generally stocked alongside smoking cessation products. DeAngelis said there are no statewide bans on tobacco sales in drugstores in any of the 41 states in which the company operates pharmacies.
Todd Brown, executive director of the Massachusetts Independent Pharmacists Association, a trade organization representing about 150 pharmacies, said the majority of the group’s members do not sell tobacco products in their stores.
The organization has remained neutral on the issue.
“We see why people would not want pharmacies to sell tobacco because they are areas in which health care is provided,’’ Brown said. “But we have not seen any evidence that restricting sales at pharmacies reduces access, because people can go to the grocery store or gas station next door to get the products.’’
Public Health Council member Paul Lanzikos, executive director of North Shore Elder Services, said he agreed with the idea of a ban, but worried about a potential backlash from tobacco companies. He said that a federal judge this week sided with tobacco companies and struck down a regulation that was to take effect next year that would require cigarette packages to contain graphic images to discourage smoking.
“There is success in the slow, incremental approach that has not invited significant opposition,’’ Lanzikos said.
“But if this [regulation] covered the entire state, that might invite in the big guns, because this would establish a precedent, so I would want to think through the strategy.’’
Altria, the parent company of Philip Morris USA, the nation’s largest tobacco company, did not return a call seeking comment.
The council voted unanimously to direct the state Department of Public Health to further investigate the proposal, and to consult with various specialists on the issue, including officials from communities that have adopted such regulations.
Council members said they would likely take up the issue again in a month or two.
In other action, the council voted to send proposed regulations concerning safe driving to a public hearing. The regulations clarify definitions for impaired driving that would affect a person’s ability to safely operate a motor vehicle.
A state law passed last year, after several high-profile accidents by older drivers, granted health care providers immunity from civil lawsuits for reporting to the Registry of Motor Vehicles if they believed a patient was incapable of driving safely.
The law left it to public health officials to define what constitutes cognitive and functional impairments for safe driving.
Kay Lazar can be reached at klazar@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @GlobeKayLazar.
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