Cigarettes gone from pharmacy shelves in Boston

Although cigarette smoking is a dirty, addictive habit, this piece of legislature is many times more offensive as an affront to what the cradle of liberty represents. What is not mentioned is that tied to this legislature is the shutting down of the few cigar bars located in the city. Legitimate businesses, where people of like minds are permitted to relax and enjoy a luxury item in peace, without bringing offense to others.

This piece of legislature, resisted by mayor Menino (PHC does not have to answer to), is a disgusting imposition of the will of a few misguided holier-than-thou indivuduals on the choice and recreation of grown adults.

More nanny-state insanity. The people who want to buy cigarettes will now just take their business elsewhere. Surrounding towns, New Hampshire and Internet sales will benefit, Boston will lose tax revenue and no one will quit smoking. What are they thinking? Oh yea, they are politicians in a one-party state, they don't have to think because no one will challenge them..

Seig Heil!

What's next on the health Nazi's list, red meat? liquor or soft drinks?

Banning rolling papers from convenience stores? Some people like to roll their own cigarettes which is less harmful than sucking on fibreglass. I suppose this type of views is verboten. In reality, that may have more to do with decriminalisation of marijuana.

I'm sure the health officials are chuffed with themselves. Now waddle off to McDonalds.

now if we could wipe ALL the smokers off of the streets

great!! lets go further.
1) stop fat people from buying cheseburgers install bmi machines at fast food restaurants
2) no beer or wine for people with alcoholism in family history
3) no reproduction for people without a high enough iq

those are the next things to happen in obamaworld.

I don't understand the logic here. Smoking is indeed terrible for people to do, but short of banning it entirely, this is a discriminatory policy that will hurt certain businesses who are already experiencing a tough year. A more responsible way to regulate smoking is to nationally take the cost that smokers cost the health care system annually and divide that amount over the number of packs of cigarettes sold, with an additional tariff added on to further discourage smoking.

How dare they, talk about Communism. Smoking is not Illegal in this state or country and they have not right imposing such a ban. If they were as effective at policing criminals, the crime rates might take a dip.

This is still America, right?! With all the things going on in the world, this is what they are concerned about. Great job, you monkeys, like who cares.

Also, I'm pretty sure college kids are old enough to smoke.

Can someone explain why changing where liquor is sold requires a vote of all Mass.citizens (e.g., the recent vote to sell beer/wine at grocery stores) yet tobacco sale locations can be changed without a vote?

Great now CVS, and Walgreens, can go out of business, and further hurt the economy in Boston. Nice work, you dolts.

AWESOME!!! They should be off shelves everywhere! In favor of more banning!!

This is the stupidest thing Boston has done in a long time. Don't we have bigger problems to deal with? Like the severe lack of affordable rental housing???

Honestly, this is a piece of stupid "feel good" legislation. If hizzoner really wants to do something about the air quality in this city, he should be doing something about the number of cars in the city.

Sweet! What did they do with them?

Wow, can the Boston Public Health Commission please take a long walk off a short pier. Really get your government out of my life.

So, while we have a budget crisis in full effect, we are spending taxpayers money on this? So smokers now need to waste more time (and using gas to drive to another store) to buy them. Do these interferers (made up word) really think because someone now can not buy their smokes at CVS they will quit. I am not a smoker, but this use to be America. land of the free.

Malden has had a similar city ordinance in effect for several months, but slightly different. One side effect has been a sharp decrease in the the number of blunt wrap packaging litter that followed like a trail of bread crumbs, the students from the high school. Slowly, surely, the ratio of wrap trash per concrete sidewalk square was approaching 1:1.

No gas station, 7-11, or Walgreens carries wraps anymore. There is a legitimate smoke shop in Malden Center and I do not frequent there so I don't know if they carry wraps, but the prohibition has made the street just a little bit cleaner.

Kids are still smoking grass, but that percentage will level out once the novelty wears off and adults actually sit down with kids and talk sense to them about life, not lies.

Wow, I am impressed! Something is happening that will help people get healthier, instead of making sure that no one loses a profit.

is anyone gonna go there anymore?

Nazis

personally i think its stupid to remove them from the stores as the people that buy them do not light up in there. its going to be a huge loss for these stores. People go in them to get smokes and tend to look around and buy but not now they won't.

what are they going to tax to make up the difference. the state will lose $2.51 for each pack not sold. deval patrick is gone crazy with taxes. including raising the state gas tax another 27 cents a gal. may be he can just add the 2.51 on to the gas tax. what the hell, we are so far in the hole now.they may just as well fill the hole and bury us all. i know the is only being done in boston but it effects the tax base for the whole state. how does the city of boston get off telling a store it can not sell a legal product. you can't buy smokes but you can wrapping paper for illegal products

It's about time. I have been smoke free for 16 years now. I saw a sign not too long ago for 7+ dollars for one pack of cigarettes. That would give me the incentive to quit right there.

Quitting is extremely hard, I know I was there and my quit day was 11/08/1993. I felt like I was a junkie and in a way I was because nicotine gets it's grip into you and doesn't want to let go. My hubby quit all his other drug habits but could not shake tobacco and alcohol which killed him before his time.

I quit smoking years ago. I detest cigarette smoke. But I think this kind of law does nothing, really, to prevent smoking, and represents further government intrusion into our personal lives.

How can you ban stores from selling blunt wraps, a pice of brown paper in a plastic wrapper, but not rolling papers? Amazing that even paper can be made illegal these days.

I detest the fact that drugstores sell tobacco products (along with some others); it goes against what they should be promoting.
I detest this type of law even more, though. No one working at CVS is getting sick. No one at Walgreens is endangering his/her health.
The consumer can should feel free to let it be known if he/she dislikes any store's selling practice and influence change that way. This is not best.

FYI: I am a proud non-smoker, but this regulation still stinks as bad as cigarette smoke.

This is disgusting that BPH commission is allowed to do this. Why don't they focus on something more important, like getting GUNS off the streets!!

If everyone magically quit smoking tomorrow you would see a lot of grown men and women cry or have a stroke without all that tax revenue they hypocritacally GLADLY accept.

addiction to cigarettes is the toughest to quit! i wish everyone luck who is trying to quit. there is a new way to try and quit smoking and they are called electronic cigarettes. for more info about electronic cigarettes you can go here and click "More Information About Electronic Cigarettes"
www.invisismoke.com

When I go into a CVS or Walgreen's for cigarettes, I always end up buying a lot of other merchandise, too, like makeup, magazines, shampoo, toothpaste, et cetera. When smokers go to outlying towns to buy cigarettes, these pharmacies will lose a lot of money on the other products that smokers also purchase. Also, it is not right to ban the sale of cigarettes at campus convenience stores. College students are 18+ and of legal age to buy tobacco. It is ironic that just after Massachusetts has decriminalized marijuana the city of Boston is clamping down on cigarettes.

Be careful what you write...soon opinions will be bannedif the gov't disagrees

to #27 Steve: I think most blunts have some percentage of tobacco in them, Royals certainly do and they are by far the most common brand of wrap.

They are easier to regulate I suppose than a mere piece of paper, which are restricted for the most part to places which card their customers to keep the kids out.

I have a history of cigar smokers in the family, I am very biased towards smokers rights, but a non smoker myself. Wraps are great, for adults only. No kids.

Do they really think that because someone can't buy cigarettes at a CVS that they are going to just decide to quit!?! Like someone is really walking in going, "Pack of Marlboros" and then after finding out they can't buy them there say, "Well in that case, give me some of that Nicorette." Nope - reality check please - they are just going to go around the corner to the 7-11 or other mom and pop convenience store. All they have done is just redistributed the income from these products to different establishments.
Sounds to me that perhaps someone on the Health Commission might have a vested interest in convenience stores. Or maybe it is just the mayor’s dislike for CVS. Either way, it is a nice slap in the face for one of the cities larger employers.

Some excellent points have been made regarding the negative effects of this legislation...

- This act does NOT make tobacco less accessible.
- This act does NOT prevent users from being encouraged to smoke.

- This act DOES cause financial harm to pharmacies within Boston, eliminating the sizeable % of secondary purchases made. A commonly given example: gas stations do not make much net profit per gallon of gasoline... their primary source of income is through secondary impulse purchases inside the store. This is applicable to the pharmacy through tobacco sales as well. Their bottom line on non-tobacco related products will suffer.

The next logical step is to ban all snack, candy, and soft drinks from pharmacies... they are directly linked to obesity, cholesterol, high blood pressure, and diabetes.

Of course, this is ALL secondary to the fact that this is one more step down the very slippery slope of losing our right to live our lives as we see fit as adults. Of course, this right of choice is in direct opposition to the HC's publicly stated goal of eliminating any and all tobbacco use of any kind, resorting to these misguided draconian measures.

Way to go, "Health Commission" einsteins...

Let them burn witches instead.

I've never smoked, but this is overkill.

Downtown Boston. 2 blocks from the Boston Commons. CVS no longer sells cigarettes. Go across the street to the 7-Eleven. Cigarettes now cost about a dollar more than they did Sunday. The pricing on the shelving hasn't even changed, it just rings up differently.

So what exactly has change besides the promotion of price gouging and a skewed "economic stimulus package" for the convenience stores in downton Boston."

Legislators and agency officials are drawing a salary for this kind of thinking?

I am a pharmacist and have been embarassed for YEARS that we sell the #1 cause of disease and death in our stores. We are working our tailsl off at the back of the store, trying to improve health, when those same patients can buy cigarettes at the front. Only 2% of pharmacists are in favor of tobacco sales in pharmacies (yes, it's true...read published literature), but the chains have fought our efforts to ban tobacco sales in pharmacies. The chain drug stores are as LOW as the tobacco industry, which is even worse than pond scum.

So it's ok to sell alcohol and let drunk drivers kill OTHER people but God forbid they smoke and kill THEMSELVES! Grow up people. It's legal and we're all big girls and boys. And NO, I'm not a smoker and YES my father died from smoking.

and the city is ready and willing to give up the rediculous tax revenue that the sale of butts brings in... i'm shocked!

get ready folks, the tax on beer and wine will be adjusted accordingly you can be sure!

Argh! this is such an invasion of personal freedoms. I understand if non smokers do not want to be subjected to smoke, but banning it from my $1200 one bed apartment which is so expensive I am basically the working poor. You have to be kidding! I cannot buy cigarette's in boston's pharmacies I just learned today as well. Well guess what did not work, me quitting that's what. Raise your prices fools..and I will just roll my own and order online! I have recently gone from $220 a month of cigs to $20.
You know what is killing Americans? Obesity..fatties. I used to be one. I could be one again. Lets ban fatties from Massachusetts. I mean if we have to look at them we might find it acceptable to eat crappy food. Lets bannish all fast food as well. hell lets ban all food considered bad from grocery stores too.
Hell lets just bannish all the citizens from the state as I am sure we could find some freedom to take away because of health.
God Bless America