A tobacco-free pharmacy is a retail pharmacy where the sale of tobacco products is not available. Outside the United States, it is illegal in countries such as in France[1] and most of Canada for pharmacy stores to sell cigarettes and similar products on the same premises as over-the-counter drugs and prescription medication. Anti-tobacco campaigners advocate the removal of tobacco from pharmacies due to the health risks associated with smoking and the apparent contradiction of selling cigarettes alongside smoking cessation products and asthma medication. Some pharmaceutical retailers counter this argument by reasoning that by selling tobacco, they are more readily able to offer to customers advice and products for quitting smoking.[2]
Origins
Since its introduction into Europe (and growth as a cash crop in the colonies of North America), tobacco has a long history of being used as a herbal remedy. Around 1560, Jean Nicot, the French ambassador to Lisbon, popularised the use of tobacco leaves as a cure for carcinoma and ringworm in the court of King Francis II of France. The Spanish botanist and physician Nicolás Monardes described the medicinal uses of tobacco in his 1565 publication Joyfull Newes out of the New-Found World.[3] In 17th-century France, the leaves of the tobacco plant were thought to have wide-ranging medicinal properties and physicians used it to treat bubonic plague, asthma, cancer, migraine and for pain relief during childbirth. In 1635 a French law was passed limiting the sale of tobacco exclusively to apothecaries.[4]
United States
San Francisco
First law in the United States to end the sales of tobacco in pharmacies
San Francisco was the site of the first ordinance ever passed in the United States to prohibit the sale of tobacco products in pharmacies.[5] The ordinance was introduced on April 29, 2008, by Mayor Gavin Newsom, passed the San Francisco Board of Supervisors on July 17, 2008, by a vote of 8–3, and took effect on October 1, 2008. On that date, pharmacies in the city became tobacco-free based on passage of Ordinance 194–08, which revised the San Francisco Health Code by amending Section 1009.53 and adding Section 1009.60 and Article 19 J. The ordinance denies the issuance of a tobacco retailer license to any establishment defined as a pharmacy. The definition of pharmacy at that time included independent pharmacies and drugstores such as Walgreens; however, exemptions were allowed for grocery stores and big box stores
Canada
The sale of tobacco is prohibited in pharmacies in all provinces and territories of Canada, except for British Columbia.[18]
Ontario was the first jurisdiction in Canada to ban the sale of tobacco products in pharmacies, with the legislative prohibition coming into force on December 31, 1994. The Ontario College of Pharmacists had been calling for such a ban since 1991. New Brunswick was the second province to enact a ban, doing so in 1997. In Quebec, a prohibition against tobacco sales in pharmacies first came into force in 1996 when the Quebec Order of Pharmacists (Ordre des pharmaciens du Québec) directed its members to stop selling cigarettes, declaring the practice to be inconsistent with the professional mandate of pharmacists. The National Assembly of Quebec followed up with a statutory ban in 1998, making it the third province in Canada to do so through legislation.[19][20][21][22]
United Kingdom
In 1962 a report published by the British Royal College of Physicians, Smoking and Health, revealed findings which linked smoking with respiratory disease.[32] The publication of the report led to the 1965 ban on cigarette advertising on television,[33] and in 1987, a statement from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain ordered that British pharmacies "should not sell tobacco or tobacco products, including cigarettes containing tobacco, from registered pharmacy premises". It was still possible to buy cigarettes from pharmacies in Britain until 2001.[34] Tobacco products may be purchased in British supermarkets which may also include a pharmacy aisle on the same premises; however, tobacco must be sold from a separate kiosk and, following the Health Act 2009, tobacco products may not be displayed openly but held in a closed cabinet or under a counter.[35]
The largest chemists shop in the United Kingdom, Boots, has been 45% owned by Walgreens since June 2012. Boots is exploring ways to diversify their range along the US drugstore business model by stocking groceries alongside the traditional lines of medicines and cosmetics, but they have stated that they have no plans to begin stocking cigarettes.
See also
- History of commercial tobacco in the United States
- Regulation of tobacco by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
- Retail display ban
- Tobacco in the United States
- Tobacco harm reduction
- Cancer
External links
References
- Quels commerces sont autorisés à vendre du tabac ? www.service-public.fr, retrieved 2021-02-22^
- Tobacco-Free Pharmacies American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation, February 21, 2019, retrieved June 5, 2019^
- Anne, BA PhD Charlton. Medicinal uses of tobacco in history Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, June 2004^