In an effort to enforce its mission statement more directly, CVS Pharmacy no longer sells cigarettes or tobacco products as of Wednesday.
“The purpose of CVS is to help patients on their path to better health and so the company feels that selling tobacco products is not really helping the patients to achieve that,” said Matt Smith, pharmacy manager at the College Station Texas Avenue CVS location. “We also decided to really push and promote smoking-cessation programs to help our customers and patients who want to quit to actually be able to quit and lead healthier lives.”
Customers have known this day was coming for a while, said store manager Tammy Gonzales.
“There are a few regular customers that we don’t see anymore because they were the smokers and mainly came to get their cigarettes, but I really don’t think it’s going to have a real big impact,” Gonzales said.
Smith said the company will face a different financial situation by not selling tobacco anymore, but the benefits will be greater long term.
“Our image is promoting health, and with us promoting health I think we’ll gain the trust of our customers and patients,” Smith said. “That’s definitely going to outweigh any monetary losses that may be experienced [by the] refusal to sell tobacco.”
Along with not selling tobacco, smoking outside the store is no longer allowed.
“I’m hoping that this will make a difference, make people want to quit,” Gonzales said. “I don’t know if it will have a big impact but I’m just hoping that it will make people think differently.”
Gonzales said she believes that although it may take a while, other big corporations will stop selling tobacco products as well.
“Companies are very competitive — it would not surprise me if other companies started on the same pathway,” Smith said. “A lot of times CVS is the forerunner of different things and others follow.”