Nicotine patch sales are growing and cigarette sales are declining in general in the US. There's not enough evidence or analysis here to show CVS made a big difference. Also remember this was a time where vape shops were popping up everywhere and people were switching from cigarettes to e-cigs.
They also quote the stock price and earnings per share as evidence for the decision being positive. But their quote was over a very bullish period for equities, without providing contrast versus other similar publicly traded companies, nor context (including: CVS’ higher than average share buybacks in part fueled by tax cuts)
> They also quote the stock price and earnings per share as evidence for the decision being positive.
No, actually. There's a tiny but important distinction here: the author is merely saying that there was a certainty that there would be negative effects, and that the expected negative effects didn't happen.
The author even grants that there isn't a certainty that this decision caused a positive outcome:
"Of course, there are many other factors that have contributed to CVS’s ... stock performance."
The article's only point is that ideologues and demagogues often assume with 100% certainty that there will be some negative outcome from some company changing some policy or another, but that this is a flaw in their thinking, because they're imagining the market to be something much more limited, simple, and rigid than it really is.
Meanwhile their shelves are flooded with homeopathic "remedies" that appear legitimate. These items deceive consumers that have been raised to assume items stocked in a pharmacy have actual medical benefits.
People offload their trust to an authority, a pharmacy, to stock actual medicine. Just like when they go to a grocery store they expect to buy actual food and not sawdust shaped and packaged as food.
Try looking for cold or flu medicine, or earache drops at CVS. You will find the tiny print "homeopathic" on nearly every item being presented on the shelf. All of them are mimics that have all of the trappings of medicine (official looking labels, colors, words) but none of the results.
I think this is an ethical failure that is worse than the sale of tobacco, because it not only dupes people looking for proven medical solutions to say, their child's earache that bring home a vial of water instead, it also continues to lend credence to the industry of swindlers and snake oil.
I hear you, but “ethical failure year is worse than the sale of tobacco” is a stretch. Tobacco killed millions. Homeopathic stuff is typically harmless and not a major killer.
Also I usually find Tylenol PM just fine at my cvs. Along with benedryl, ibuprofen and other routine “real” meds.
> "Homeopathic stuff is typically harmless and not a major killer."
Does that analysis include people who neglect to seek real medical attention because snakeoil crackpottery has lured them into a false sense of security?
(I would not expect as many people to be harmed by homeopathy as cigarettes, but nevertheless I don't think you should characterize it as harmless.)
It is 100% fraud, taking advantage of ignorance and selling people false medicine. There is nothing harmless about that. It prevents people from seeking real treatments, and there are real long-term consequences to public health that come along with that.
Homeopathic stuff is typically harmless but there was a case in the 2000s where Zicam sold a "homeopathic" nasal spray at a low dilution of zinc (i.e., it actually contained zinc) as a cold remedy. The result: hundreds of people caused permanent damage to their senses of smell.
This changed my attitudes towards consumer protection a lot. I thought I was smart enough to tell medicine from snake oil, but Zicam ads had high production values and looked just like ads for Tylenol or NyQuil. It was a far cry from the laughable marketing of that other '00s homeopathic product, HeadOn. (Apply directly to the forehead!) So I thought it was a legit product until the news of the lawsuits came out.
I think it's gray because in my opinion it's not true. I've been to CVS many times, and while there may be some products, I don't see the shelves overflowing with homeopathic remedies.
Also, it's important to remember that "homeopathic" has multiple definitions in this context. There is the definition of "a substance in a dilution so minute that it's likely non of the actual molecules exist in solution", but that BS is not what you'll find at CVS.
Instead, you'll find stuff like Zicam, which is marketed as a "homeopathic preparation" (TBH I have no idea why), but it most definitely contains sizable amounts of the active ingredient, zinc. While the jury is still out on whether zinc is as effective in shortening the duration of the common cold as advertised, there is certainly a sizable number of studies that support it. I take it and it definitely seems to work for me - whether that's placebo effect or not I have no idea.
The makers of Zicam have been sued hundreds of times because they put so much Zinc Gluconate in to their product that it (permanently) destroyed people's ability to smell.
I'd certainly never noticed anything homoepathic before at CVS (and all the real medicine is still there) and so was inclined to dismiss it, but just did a quick search for "cold medicine":
I am actually rather shocked to see that 3 of the first 20 items listed (Zicam, Cold-eeze, CVS Non-drowsy cold remedy) do indeed say "homeopathic" on the front label.
But 3 out of 20 is certainly not "flooded" or "nearly every item". And those 3 are just lozenges, where the main action is the sugar that coats your throat anyways, so I don't see any evidence it's trying to trick people from buying actual medicine.
But still, I wasn't aware "homeopathic" products were sold at legitimate drugstores at all, and I'm not sure how I feel about it.
CVS (and others) have sold homeopathic asthma rescue inhalers for quite a while. They appeared on the shelves immediately after Primatine Mist became unavailable. This is infuriating because asthma rescue inhalers are one of those "do not fuck with" things and a chain of multiple morons thought it would be okay to sell aerosolized water in place of actual medication.
I get a little wound up on a number of topics, but this is one where, if I had the opportunity, I'd gleefully kick square in the goolies every single person involved in putting that product on the shelf. And I'd buy a pair of steel-toed boots first.
How is that legal? Is there no law by which they could be sued for misleading representation of a life-saving medical product or something?
It seems like such a no-brainer of a law. Serious question: why is this the first I'm hearing about it? I've literally never seen an article about this in any newspaper and I read a lot of news. And this is exactly the kind of stuff that journalists tend to discover and expose.
Where is the outrage, and how is this still being permitted?
The FDA was bought off by a big homeopath company a while ago from what I heard. However, recently, they’ve began cracking down on false claims through the FTC.
As for the outrage: it’s because it’s too common; you don’t want to alienate a large portion of your viewer base by “exposing” homeopathic remedies
I can’t say homeopathy is at the same level as tobacco, but it is a fraud and unethical to push vials of water as medicine. French pharmacies make a killing selling these fake medicines. What’s unethical is that, in France, actual pharmacists promote that crap. It’s literally a placebo that they are claiming “works.” You could take an entire store’s worth of homeopathic remedies and you’d have nothing more than a full stomach. If they want to sell that stuff, they should put a label on it that says: “absolutely no active ingredients of any sort, this is just a product to make you feel as if you took actual medicine.”
CVS started as a variety store (it stood for Consumer Value Stores) and there are still a few older locations that don't have pharmacies, but pharmacy counter revenue has greatly outpaced "front store" revenue for a long time now. Today the parent company is called CVS Health and in addition to the retail chain it owns health insurer Aetna and pharmacy benefits manager Caremark. (As well as the pharmacy counters inside Target stores.)
So CVS is primarily a pharmacy, unlike Walmart and Kroger, which are stores that have pharmacies.
The pharmacy may be what makes most of the money, but I've never seen a CVS where the pharmacy was more than a tiny thing at the back of a large store.
The "pharmacy" is the window/counter in the back of the store. A typical CVS will contain a pharmacy, but generally the fridge full of cola is not considered part of that pharmacy. You find similar "pharmacy within a more general store" arrangements in places like Walmart, many grocery stores, etc.
In other words, Walmart is not a pharmacy but Walmart has a pharmacy.
That's true. When searching Google maps, the hours of the "CVS Pharmacy" are for the actual pharmacy inside the CVS store; which might close early than the general CVS store (under the term "CVS" only)
Soda pop was often sold in drug stores from soda fountains. The drink started off as medicine it was put in a form that was pleasant to consume sweet carbonated water.
A YouTube channel Loft Pursuits has a video part of which explains soda pop. The video is about the NY Egg Cream but it starts off with the history of carbonated water and soda pop.
In New York city in the early 1800s St. Patrick's cathedral was being constructed. Someone figured out the marble dust from the construction when mixed with acid created a cheap supply of carbon dioxide. Carbonated water was rare and expensive back then so this was a great opportunity. Candy stores in the area made syrups and sold it by mixing it was the carbonated water.
Many pharmacies installed soda fountains and sold ice cream to give customers an excuse to give them even more money as they waited for their prescriptions to be prepared.
Maybe doctors offices and mechanics should consider something similar.
Didn't soda originate as a sort of "medicine" during the patent medicine days? (7-up had lithium, Coca-Cola had cocaine) If so, it makes more sense that a pharmacy would have a soda fountain.
Red Bull cola, if still available, contains coca leaf and quite a few other less intriguing but delicious extracts; eg galangal, corn mint, mustard seed, cardamom,... It's my favorite cola, or was. The quality ingredients might explain the low popularity. Haven't seen it for years, and never at a pharmacy.
Soda and junk food in moderation won’t kill you. There isn’t really a safe dose of tobacco. You can be very healthy and enjoy a Coke from time to time. Health isn’t about always avoiding junk — it’s about balance and moderation.
I'd be curious to see what the stats actually are. What proportion of smokers are occasional smokers, and what proportion of soda drinkers are occasional soda drinkers? I would not expect similar distributions.
Listen to President Donald Trump demand a $4 billion dollar bribe from child rapists to "turn a blind eye" on January 3, 2019. Download the video, turn the volume all the way up and put head phones on. Trump is on a call from with Henry Porter and Gigi Hadid. (Page 63) Bribe demand @1018am
I’m disturbed by the author treating Jim Cramer as a representative of serious Wall Street opinion. There’s no real evidence here that it was a good decision - all sorts of things go into the stock price.
I use to do some day trading. The joke among the day trading community in those days was that if Kramer recommends buying into a company, then usually a good idea to do the opposite.
That's probably true due to the size of his megaphone. Even if all his advice was great, his recommending a stock could quickly drive the price up to where it wasn't great anymore.
Are people who are happy about this also supportive of pharmacists who don’t dispense drugs that terminate pregnancies because they have a moral objection?
Personal opinion: no, because regular products like tobacco are not comparable to prescription drugs like mifepristone and misoprostol. Being granted the right to sell controlled substances can come with additional restrictions on what you can refuse to sell.
Pharamacies, as critical medical infrastructure, need to do their best to dispense anything prescribed by a doctor.
They don't need to carry anything else. And convenience stores obviously don't have to carry anything in particular.
Ideally there's also a full suite of basic over the counter medicines but I wouldn't say it's a necessity at pharmacies. I would say it's very important that somewhere carries those...
I remember leaving a CVS at one time. Seeing all the posters and health products. Then seeing an employee unlock the case for cigarettes. Really felt like a mixed message.
When I first heard the news I worried it would kill CVS. Tobacco companies at the time had famous tech company margins. It would really hurt them to do so. Still do it seems: Phillips Morris operating margin is 38%.
I am really glad it worked out for them. I hate it when other people can smoke because I can smell it downwind. I can smell it on other people. I could barely smell it on one guy who said he washed his hands and arms in the bathroom sink afterwards to avoid others smelling it.
The smell is only part of the problem for nom-smokers, if you spend any significant time around a person smokibg your clothes will get the smell of cigarettes embedded.
I worked at a CVS in high school, and tobacco products were definitely a huge percentage (30%-ish) of transactions back then. But at the time, my CVS was also the only easily accessible destination for people in town without cars to buy those products. And it was a college town too, so there were plenty of those folks.
I do think that getting rid of tobacco products helps the brand image though. It always took longer to get customers through a line when you had to find their particular brand out of 30. It's also true that many of the customers buying tobacco were noticeably lower-class, so I could imagine this change making middle class and higher people more into CVS (sort of like the Target vs Walmart divide).
Good fucking grief. Courage? I don't need to regurgitate the discrepancies mentioned by many here, eg sugar snake oil, junkfood, ALCOHOL etc. I'll instead infuriate some guardian angels with a less pharisaic perspective on tobacco. Tobacco is a plant. Its use is not solely relegated to neatly packed, ugly boxes of pre-rolled toxic cardboard shavings. It can and does take the form of hand-rolled cigars and snus - which when not consumed fanatically, have low correlation with disease. Snus is not exposed to heat, neither in processing or consumption. This results in a product with negligible nitrosamines. Until a nephilim lands amongst us with enough courage to ban hotdogs and candybars, public danger thereof will probably exceed that of snus, if frequency of consumption is proportionate. The same ideology that impels such extreme measures as botanical bans, has humans suffering for decades in cages for possessing marijuana; another plant. I will be reasonable and suggest that one could easily go on a diet of hotdogs, beer and candybars and fare worse than one who enjoys a daily cigar, and they could do it shopping exclusively at CVS (not the cigar smoker though, who must shop at Walgreens and doesn't drink).
A more obscure but significant problem with some tobacco is psychology. The packaging, quantity and pre-rolling exacerbate it, making it too easy to effectively smoke a habit, rather than cigarette, ie some smoking is done less because of addiction and more due to habit. Cigarettes, and in some cases tobacco, are obviously problematic. Abandoning either rather than banning both altogether seems reasonable. However, I can no longer buy a cigar at CVS. I can get Rx for restless leg filled and wash it down with acetaminophen and beer and Skittles though. Meanwhile, cigars are legal, but CVS is at a higher level.
I know tobacco can be a problem. Is it a problem? Maybe some applications are problematic. Well, certainly some are.
He missed a piece of the story. Caremark (the pharmacy benefit manager owned by CVS) also introduced an optional pharmacy network that increases copays at pharmacies that sell cigarettes -- that is, pretty much every retail pharmacy other than CVS's. [1] Whether this is just more "Courage to Lead", or a genius ploy to increase CVS's retail pharmacy revenue, or both, I leave you to consider.
65 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 141 ms ] threadNo, actually. There's a tiny but important distinction here: the author is merely saying that there was a certainty that there would be negative effects, and that the expected negative effects didn't happen.
The author even grants that there isn't a certainty that this decision caused a positive outcome:
"Of course, there are many other factors that have contributed to CVS’s ... stock performance."
The article's only point is that ideologues and demagogues often assume with 100% certainty that there will be some negative outcome from some company changing some policy or another, but that this is a flaw in their thinking, because they're imagining the market to be something much more limited, simple, and rigid than it really is.
People offload their trust to an authority, a pharmacy, to stock actual medicine. Just like when they go to a grocery store they expect to buy actual food and not sawdust shaped and packaged as food.
Try looking for cold or flu medicine, or earache drops at CVS. You will find the tiny print "homeopathic" on nearly every item being presented on the shelf. All of them are mimics that have all of the trappings of medicine (official looking labels, colors, words) but none of the results.
I think this is an ethical failure that is worse than the sale of tobacco, because it not only dupes people looking for proven medical solutions to say, their child's earache that bring home a vial of water instead, it also continues to lend credence to the industry of swindlers and snake oil.
Also I usually find Tylenol PM just fine at my cvs. Along with benedryl, ibuprofen and other routine “real” meds.
Does that analysis include people who neglect to seek real medical attention because snakeoil crackpottery has lured them into a false sense of security?
(I would not expect as many people to be harmed by homeopathy as cigarettes, but nevertheless I don't think you should characterize it as harmless.)
Homeopathic stuff may be harmless, but homeopaths are sometimes actively harming themselves or others by not getting proper treatment.
This changed my attitudes towards consumer protection a lot. I thought I was smart enough to tell medicine from snake oil, but Zicam ads had high production values and looked just like ads for Tylenol or NyQuil. It was a far cry from the laughable marketing of that other '00s homeopathic product, HeadOn. (Apply directly to the forehead!) So I thought it was a legit product until the news of the lawsuits came out.
I'd presume a substantial correlation between ignorance and poverty, the last thing these people need is wasted money on ineffective treatment.
Also, it's important to remember that "homeopathic" has multiple definitions in this context. There is the definition of "a substance in a dilution so minute that it's likely non of the actual molecules exist in solution", but that BS is not what you'll find at CVS.
Instead, you'll find stuff like Zicam, which is marketed as a "homeopathic preparation" (TBH I have no idea why), but it most definitely contains sizable amounts of the active ingredient, zinc. While the jury is still out on whether zinc is as effective in shortening the duration of the common cold as advertised, there is certainly a sizable number of studies that support it. I take it and it definitely seems to work for me - whether that's placebo effect or not I have no idea.
The word homeopathic was written on it in VERY small print. It was sold right next to all the other burn creams.
It does happen.
https://www.rn.com/headlines-in-health/zicam-alert/
The CVS here in Gilroy has, at a rough estimate, about 20-30% of their pill-shelf space dedicated to homeopathic stuff. It's awful.
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/cvs-selling-homeopathic-rem...
https://www.cvs.com/search/?cp=%5B%7B"key"%3A"source"%2C"val...
I am actually rather shocked to see that 3 of the first 20 items listed (Zicam, Cold-eeze, CVS Non-drowsy cold remedy) do indeed say "homeopathic" on the front label.
But 3 out of 20 is certainly not "flooded" or "nearly every item". And those 3 are just lozenges, where the main action is the sugar that coats your throat anyways, so I don't see any evidence it's trying to trick people from buying actual medicine.
But still, I wasn't aware "homeopathic" products were sold at legitimate drugstores at all, and I'm not sure how I feel about it.
I get a little wound up on a number of topics, but this is one where, if I had the opportunity, I'd gleefully kick square in the goolies every single person involved in putting that product on the shelf. And I'd buy a pair of steel-toed boots first.
How is that legal? Is there no law by which they could be sued for misleading representation of a life-saving medical product or something?
It seems like such a no-brainer of a law. Serious question: why is this the first I'm hearing about it? I've literally never seen an article about this in any newspaper and I read a lot of news. And this is exactly the kind of stuff that journalists tend to discover and expose.
Where is the outrage, and how is this still being permitted?
As for the outrage: it’s because it’s too common; you don’t want to alienate a large portion of your viewer base by “exposing” homeopathic remedies
You could also get better. The placebo effect is a real thing. People wouldn’t fall for the snake oil if it never “worked.”
Pharmacies carry a lot of stuff that have nothing to do with health and that includes junk food.
So CVS is primarily a pharmacy, unlike Walmart and Kroger, which are stores that have pharmacies.
And the pharmacy creates a captive market of people that buy other items while they’re there.
There’s a reason pharmacies keep getting bigger even though the dispensing area isn’t.
In other words, Walmart is not a pharmacy but Walmart has a pharmacy.
A YouTube channel Loft Pursuits has a video part of which explains soda pop. The video is about the NY Egg Cream but it starts off with the history of carbonated water and soda pop.
In New York city in the early 1800s St. Patrick's cathedral was being constructed. Someone figured out the marble dust from the construction when mixed with acid created a cheap supply of carbon dioxide. Carbonated water was rare and expensive back then so this was a great opportunity. Candy stores in the area made syrups and sold it by mixing it was the carbonated water.
https://youtu.be/YMGiOumwljY?t=209
Maybe doctors offices and mechanics should consider something similar.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Bull_Simply_Cola
The problem is that people don’t smoke only one cigarette once a month or eat junk food once s month.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Grdr8xF2psKNsuYlEnl9dIRV-77....
This is the tip of the iceberg. PDF link below:
Full 84 page document [updated 9Sep]: FBI_FinalDraft_26Jul2019_BSchlenker.pdf
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Sj9EN_pHmicKS6rFQlmk67knMdJ....
They don't need to carry anything else. And convenience stores obviously don't have to carry anything in particular.
Ideally there's also a full suite of basic over the counter medicines but I wouldn't say it's a necessity at pharmacies. I would say it's very important that somewhere carries those...
When I first heard the news I worried it would kill CVS. Tobacco companies at the time had famous tech company margins. It would really hurt them to do so. Still do it seems: Phillips Morris operating margin is 38%.
I am really glad it worked out for them. I hate it when other people can smoke because I can smell it downwind. I can smell it on other people. I could barely smell it on one guy who said he washed his hands and arms in the bathroom sink afterwards to avoid others smelling it.
I do think that getting rid of tobacco products helps the brand image though. It always took longer to get customers through a line when you had to find their particular brand out of 30. It's also true that many of the customers buying tobacco were noticeably lower-class, so I could imagine this change making middle class and higher people more into CVS (sort of like the Target vs Walmart divide).
A more obscure but significant problem with some tobacco is psychology. The packaging, quantity and pre-rolling exacerbate it, making it too easy to effectively smoke a habit, rather than cigarette, ie some smoking is done less because of addiction and more due to habit. Cigarettes, and in some cases tobacco, are obviously problematic. Abandoning either rather than banning both altogether seems reasonable. However, I can no longer buy a cigar at CVS. I can get Rx for restless leg filled and wash it down with acetaminophen and beer and Skittles though. Meanwhile, cigars are legal, but CVS is at a higher level.
I know tobacco can be a problem. Is it a problem? Maybe some applications are problematic. Well, certainly some are.
It seemed pretty clear to me their business was prescriptions and addictions in one convenient place.
[1] https://www.drugchannels.net/2014/10/thoughts-on-caremarks-n...