Rob Price, the Chief Marketing Officer at CVS Caremark announced today that CVS Caremark will stop selling cigarettes and other tobacco products at their more than 7,600 CVS/pharmacy stores by October 1, 2014.

Smoking is the leading cause of premature disease and death in the U.S., with more than 480,000 deaths annually. Because of this, they believe it is the right thing for them to do not just for the company but for their customers.

“Our decision to stop selling tobacco products is consistent with the positions taken by the American Medical Association, American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, American Lung Association and American Pharmacists Association that have all publicly opposed tobacco sales in retail outlets with pharmacies. There is evidence that reducing the availability of cigarettes reduces smoking rates, and research shows that seven out of ten smokers say they want to quit, so we want to help them do so.”

Of course not selling them isn’t going to get people to stop smoking.  But they are one step ahead and have already thought about that part too!  Besides removing cigarettes and tobacco products for sale, this Spring CVS Caremark will also be launching a national smoking cessation program with the goal of helping millions of Americans quit smoking.

I’m so happy they’ve decided to do this and I’m so proud to work with such a GREAT company who doesn’t concentrate on the bottom line, but instead on the people.  That’s something I’ve learned over and over again with the different visit’s I’ve made to the CVS/Pharmacy headquarters in Woonsocket, Rhode Island.  They make it very obvious in the way they do things so this doesn’t surprise me at all.

What do you think?