Banning cigarette sales in pharmacies is eminently sensible

Letter to the Editor
Daily Gazette

Friday, May 1, 2009

The April 22 editorial [“Don’t ban cigarette sales in drugstores”] regarding the Gazette’s support for continuing to allow pharmacies to sell tobacco really surprised me.

It compared this important piece of public health law to “overreaching laws that trample personal freedoms and make life more difficult for businesses.” It also stated, “It’s stupid, simple-minded policy making.”

Well, if the Gazette had done its homework it would have found out that the United Kingdom, France and Canada have already implemented this “simple-minded policy,” banning the sale of tobacco, a product that causes harm and death when used as intended, in all their pharmacies. The province of Ontario has even had this ban in place since 1993. These countries understand that when tobacco products are less accessible, fewer people will smoke and their communities will be healthier.

What is stopping pharmacies and our state legislators from putting the health of our community and the welfare of our children before profits? How can a pharmacy, a place where people go to get healthy, display, front and center, a product that causes harm? It is important that we send a consistent message to our youth about the dangers of smoking. We can’t tell them that smoking cigarettes is bad and at the same time permit them to walk into any CVS, Rite Aid or Walgreens and see the large, colorful displays of tobacco products right behind the counter.

This makes cigarettes seem as benign as the candy and magazines that line the front of the counter, neither of which, when used as intended, will cause death and disease.

Judy Rightmyer
Burnt Hills