Will Walgreens become the Preferred Drug Store for cigarette smokers?

Will Walgreen's lengthy Chicago-area history help it keep business if tobacco products actually become an issue?

I have to admit to being somewhat amused this week by the announcement by CVS that they will stop selling cigarettes and other tobacco products later this year.

It has me wondering if the business battle between newcomer CVS and long-time Chicago-area pharmaceutical retailer Walgreen’s will now turn to trying to gain a business advantage concerning those people who need to have their daily dose of “smokes.”

WILL CVS NOW try to claim a high moralistic attitude because they won’t sell cigarettes? Will they be the start of a trend in which the sight of all those racks of cigarette packs and cartons behind the cash register will become obsolete?

Or something you only see in a seedier sort of business?

Is that what Walgreen’s is destined to become? Since the Deerfield-based retailer indicated this week they do not plan to follow suit on cigarettes.

They’re adopting the line of logic used by convenience stores, gasoline stations and other businesses that include tobacco products on their shelves – they add to the financial bottom line in a way that can make the difference between being profitable or going out of business altogether.

HOW FAR WILL Walgreen’s be prepared to carry this decision out? Because they certainly want to be taken seriously in terms of health care issues.

In fact, there are those industry analysts who contend that CVS’ decision to drop cigarettes from their stores is less about a high-minded moral statement and more about a bottom-line business decision.

As in they can make more money ultimately by having various clinics, vaccination services and other health care options in their stores – services with which the sight of cigarette cartons would just be too much of a clash!

Personally, I don’t smoke. I never have. Just something about the smell was always so unappealing that I never felt compelled to try.

WHICH MAKES ME not so much appreciate a business that doesn’t encourage smoking, as much as dislike a business that does.

I have way too many memories of getting stuck in lines waiting to make a purchase because the person right ahead of me either can’t make up their mind what brand of cigarettes they want, or (more often) are getting all worked up into a frenzy that demands to see a store manager because the sales clerk can’t figure out which of the variety of brands it is that the customer wants.

Invariably, it winds up being a small purchase I was making (sometimes, as little as purchasing a newspaper or two – yes, I still prefer ink on paper to this format).

Which makes such a purchase a bigger deal than it has to be!

THERE’S ALSO THE case that I currently live at a place with both a Walgreen’s and a CVS store within three blocks of me. I can’t say I favored either one of them in the past.

But I may well have to start spending more money at the CVS if this tobacco sales issue actually becomes a controversy.

Because I’m sure the people who want to view their cigarettes as some sort of civil rights issue (never mind the real issues of our society) will be more than willing to make a stink about this – and not just because their clothes and breath reeks of inhaling too much tobacco fumes throughout their lives.

There are times when I wonder if people are willing to “fight to the death” for their cigarette habit as intensely as those who are making an issue of “concealed carry. Perhaps it’s the same people – a cigarette pack in the shirt pocket and pistol tucked in the hip.

OR MAYBE A cigarette pack and pistol tucked in the purse?

While the rest of us consider fighting for issues that really matter in our daily lives. Including which place might help us look out better for our health.

Could that now be CVS?

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Trial courts will have to hear arguments about “morning-after” lawsuit

It is being described as a “blow” to the efforts of activists who want pharmacists to do their jobs and provide medication – regardless of their personal religious beliefs. The Illinois Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the attempt to dismiss a lawsuit by religious pharmacists without hearing arguments was incorrect.

So now, this case will have to go back to a circuit court, where impassioned arguments both for and against will be heard, and some judge will have to put his personal and legal reputation on the line to make a ruling that is guaranteed to tick off a significant segment of the population – regardless of how he (or she) rules.

AT STAKE IS the “morning-after” pill; the pharmaceutical creation that supposedly allows women who have just had sexual intercourse to take the pill in hopes they can reduce the chances of their partner’s sperm actually fertilizing one of their eggs.

In short, they can reduce (although there are no guarantees that the pill will work 100 percent of the time) the chances of becoming pregnant.

Such medication was designed originally with the intent of helping women who were raped to avoid becoming impregnated by the man who committed a criminal act with their body. Some women would like to use the pills to ward off the chance of pregnancy so as to avoid taking birth control pills or using other contraceptive devices.

So supporters argue this medication is all a part of the concept of giving a woman more control over her own physical body.

BUT THAT IS the same logic used by abortion rights activists when they defend the notion of abortion being a legally available procedure throughout the United States. So naturally, the anti-abortion activists are determined to include this pill in their own arguments on the issue.

They are the ones who arranged for the legal representation for the pharmacists, al of whom argue that they personally oppose abortion and do not believe they should have to dispense any kind of medication they equate with termination of a pregnancy.

Not even if its purpose is to prevent a pregnancy from occurring that might later be terminated.

Generally, the law in our state does allow for pharmacists to get away with this logic, provided they are willing to give women entering their pharmacies the address of another pharmacy where they can receive such medication.

BUT IN THE case of the pharmacists involved in this lawsuit, they don’t even want to go that far. They want to be able to prevent women from having access to the pills anywhere.

Now I realize that pharmacists (strictly speaking) are not medical doctors, and are not bound by the same professional code of ethics as an M.D. So perhaps there is some arcane portion of pharmaceutical ethics that justifies refusing a medication to a person who could use it properly.

But it has always been my understanding that doctors have a certain ethical responsibility to make their treatment available to people who need it. I was never aware of anything that would allow a doctor to refuse to treat a patient because he had some sort of personal disagreement with the person who was ill.

It is even standard procedure in wartime that doctors working with the military will provide treatment for wounds suffered by people on both sides of a military conflict (unless one literally has the mentality of the old “Frank Burns” character from “M*A*S*H” – the film and television show).

MY POINT IN delivering this diatribe? Where does a pharmacist come off denying medication to anyone? I have a hard time thinking that such conduct complies with an ethical code of conduct for the profession.

I would think that if someone really has such qualms about providing medications to people, they ought to think seriously about finding another line of work.

Like I noted before, state law does allow pharmacists to refer women to other pharmacies so they can get the medication. If a pharmacist is willing to pass one someone’s business, that’s their choice. When it comes down to it, that sense of choice and free will is “the American Way.”

But trying to deny the medication outright is NOT the “American Way,” particularly if it involves rural communities where there simply isn’t a lot of choice by people as to where they can purchase their medications.

IT WOULD SEEM to me that pharmacists in those communities are trying to use the limited economic opportunity of rural America to enforce their own code of social morality, which offends me because I always thought a large part of what this country is about consists of allowing people to be left alone – provided their activities do not interfere with others.

I think people ought to spend more time worrying about their own morals and not everybody else’s.

Even though I use this weblog to offer up commentary (and can occasionally get “preachy” about what people ought to do), I also realize this is just a matter of offering up opinion on issues of public concern.

I have always been aware of the fact that not everybody else will agree with me, and has the right to ignore my opinion no matter how correct I am and how wrong they are.

INSOFAR AS THE Illinois Supreme Court’s latest ruling is concerned, it is a little troubling to me in that I would have liked this particularly lawsuit to be over. In my opinion, it qualifies as one of those “frivolous” lawsuits that conservatives and tort reform advocates always say are what is wrong with the legal system today.

Yet the high court disagreed, and now both sides will have to have attorneys argue the merits of the case. I am confident that the lower courts will ultimately do the right thing. They have a knack of doing so, and often are the entity that prevents government officials from going too far with politically partisan behavior turned into public policy.

If that means women ultimately will get to decide for themselves whether they would want to use such a pill (after all, no one will force it down the throat of a woman who has her own moral qualms about abortion), that strikes me as being the correct outcome.

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