WOONSOCKET, R.I. – Drugstore chain CVS says that its move to stop selling tobacco products at all of its stores one year ago has led to people buying 1% fewer packs of cigarettes in 13 states, according to the company’s new study.
The study, conducted by the CVS Health Research Institute, evaluated cigarette pack purchases at drug, food, big box, dollar, convenience and gas station retailers in the eight months after CVS/pharmacy stopped selling tobacco products. The study found an additional 1% reduction in cigarette pack sales in states where CVS/pharmacy had a 15% or greater share of the retail pharmacy market, compared to states with no CVS/pharmacy stores. Over the same eight-month period, the average smoker in these states purchased five fewer cigarette packs and, in total, approximately 95 million fewer packs were sold.
Troyen Brennan, a physician and CVS Health's chief medical officer, said in an interview that more than two-thirds of smokers want to quit, and half of all smokers try to quit each year. He also suggested that tobacco products are not a planned purchase. "We also know that cigarette purchases are often spontaneous. And so we reasoned that removing a convenient location to buy cigarettes could decrease overall tobacco use," he said.
The CVS study also showed a 4% increase in nicotine patch purchases in the states with a CVS/pharmacy market share of 15% of more. The company claims this indicates a positive effect on attempts to quit smoking.
Jeff Stier, a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research, told USA Today that CVS “only sold a very small percentage of the nation's cigarettes to start with, and financial analysts have said the impact of CVS' move wouldn't have a major impact on smoking rates.” He added that the “bold claim” by CVS that its decision “to stop selling cigarettes actually got a significant number of smokers to just buy the mostly ineffective nicotine patches and quit smoking, only illustrates how little the company knows about the difficulty of quitting."