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<p>You’d be amazed at how much even that one extra little stop deters people. </p>
<p>Funny enough, they will probably fill that cigarette space with candy bars. It was a business decision, nothing more.</p>
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<p>This would be fine with me. Candy bars are much less dangerous than cigarettes. </p>
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<p>The nicotine in nicotine gum carries all of the same risks. It’s an insecticide poison that is lethal to humans in not terribly high doses. Among other things, it’s a vascular constrictor so increases blood pressure. Also been linked to some cancers. Having said that, those forms of nicotine delivery are clearly less risky than inhaling smoke.</p>
<p>The problem is that the pharma and public health marketing of risk reduction (willfully) ignores the big picture. People smoke because they are addicted to nicotine. Period. End of story. All the other rationalizations are just junkie delusions. Nobody pays $6 a pack to inhale burning leaves unless they need the drug fix. </p>
<p>The tobacco companies know that. The pharma companies know that. Both plan to sell their nicotine products by keeping users addicted and lifelong customers. The simple reality is that the only real cure for nicotine addiction is to stop taking the drug. Until you do that, the brain receptors and dopamine release pathways that cause addiction will not allow you to live without the drug.</p>
<p>There’s no more prominent example than our current President. He “stopped smoking” in 2007 and is still, seven years later, using nicotine in the form of nicotine gum. That’s seven years of drug addiction when he could have been completely free. The thing people don’t understand is that, if you break the addiction, you stop craving the drug. As long as you use the drug, the brain chemistry makes you crave it. Poor guy has suffered needlessly for seven years on the false promise that Nicorette would make it “easier” to quit. He could have been over and done with the whole mess in 30 days if he had simply made a personal commitment to never use nicotine again. He would have been totally free from the addiction seven years ago.</p>
<p>Romani–I was agreeing with you.</p>
<p>ID–I agree it is addicting. I still think the majority of smokers would stand a much better chance without th burning leaves.</p>
<p>I know ex-smokers (like drinkers) who never break the addiction; who feel that they are always in danger of going back. My SIL was off smoking for seven years, now working on quitting again. For the third, fourth? time.</p>
<p>Sorry, garland, I knew that. Didn’t mean to sound like I wasn’t agreeing… was just adding on 
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<p>Plus they generally don’t hurt everyone around them, unlike cigarettes. </p>
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<p>We don’t know that this would have happened.</p>
<p>It’s entirely possible that he would have been unable to break his nicotine addiction and would still be smoking.</p>
<p>To me, staying addicted to nicotine but using it in a form that is much less dangerous than cigarettes seems like a reasonable proposition. It’s a form of harm reduction – a concept that’s accepted in other health contexts. </p>
<p>Also, I’m not sure that if you break the addiction, you do stop craving the drug. My father broke a three-pack-a-day smoking habit when he was hospitalized for pneumonia in his mid-40s. While in the hospital, he was not allowed to smoke, and by the time he was discharged, he realized that he had gotten through the worst of the withdrawal symptoms, and he never went back to smoking again. But he never stopped craving cigarettes. Up to the end of his life – almost 40 years later – if he smelled cigarette smoke, he would feel the desire for a cigarette. And he never stopped reaching for cigarettes in the shirt pocket where he used to keep them. </p>
<p>CVS is hardly cleaning up the neighborhood air with this decision. They’re increasing shelf space for a more profitable item. Honestly, I don’t shop or not shop somewhere based on what else they sell. That would be very complicated. I also couldn’t buy groceries since they have tobacco, </p>
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<p>That’s actually a different issue. Those are smoking cues/triggers, not the same a physical crave.</p>
<p>It’s a very interesting process. By a fluke of nature, nicotine molecules bond to particular receptors in the brain that trigger a dopamine release. A dopamine release is the brain’s most powerful learning/reward mechanism. We are programmed to remember what we were doing when dopamine is released and, as a matter of survival, learn to do it again - eat, get warmth, etc. </p>
<p>So, over time, we have a powerful learning mechanism to associate the things we were doing while smoking with the dopamine release. After a few years of that, all of these cues trigger the thought of a cigarette. Walking out of a store. Mowing the lawn. After a meal. Cooking Thanksgiving dinner. In the year after you quit smoking, each of these “first time triggers” pops up. My funniest one was the first time I went clothes shopping after quitting nicotine. It was months after I had last craved a cigarette. I had zero temptation to smoke. Yet, every time in my adult life I’d been in a clothing store for an hour, I walked out and immediately reached for cigarette. So, sure enough, I walked out of Marshalls that first time, and literally like Dr. Stranglove, my hand reached for my shirt pocket for the cigarettes. Right there on the sidewalk, I had to stop and burst out laughing. But, that’s why this nicotine addiction stuff is so diabolical.</p>
<p>When, you understand that it’s all just brain chemistry, these triggers are really easy to extinguish. You have to experience them at least once, so it takes a year – first time cooking Thanksgiving dinner, first time raking leaves in the fall, etc. But, you experience it, you recognize it for what it is, you have a little chuckle, and it’s gone.</p>
<p>The actual physical cravings are gone after 2 to 4 weeks with no nicotine. It takes that long for the hijacked dopamine receptors to be resensitized so that that something other than nicotine can make them work. It’s the hijacking of those receptors that is the actual physical underpinning of a drug addiction.</p>
<p>I remember when the first airline, Northwest, banned smoking on its flights. It seemed like a small, insignificant step at the time but it led to a cascade of other non-smoking airlines and regulations. Let’s hope that CVS’ decision also has that effect.</p>
<p>I know taxing cigarettes seems helpful, but it makes me cringe a bit compared to this - like charging someone for a weakness. </p>
<p>The main grocery stores I frequent don’t sell cigarettes or hard liquor.
Devices meant to help you quit smoking, arent generally as harmful, imo, because cigarettes have extra additives, that the patches & gum do not.</p>
<p>I thought the link between tobacco & anger was interesting.
<a href=“Drug and Alcohol News Archive - Partnership to End Addiction”>Drug and Alcohol News Archive - Partnership to End Addiction;
I quit smoking in the 1970’s, which was very easy. I just decided that $.65 was too much to pay for a pack of cigarettes. ( unfortunately, I am not able to quit my addiction to gasoline despite the price hike) but as I mentioned in another thread, my brain does not give me the endorphin rewards of using various substances, so there isn’t much lure to continuing to use.
:(</p>
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<p>You bet I’d be amazed. Smokers will go to great lengths to feed their habit. Having to make a stop at another store away will deter nobody.</p>
<p>Bravo CVS… I already have prescriptions filled there and would be happy to buy more stuff there and say thank you for taking a stand. Will Walgreens and Duane Reade follow? </p>
<p>My company has always employed actors and I work with a man who has always turned down any commercials, voice-over work for any products that he finds unhealthy or socially unacceptable such as tobacco. People need to take personal stands wherever they can, whether it makes a huge impact or not- for example I watch no programming on FOX, even local news or traffic because I find their network philosophy and point of view appalling. That is my humble opinion for whatever it’s worth and I don’t expect anyone else to do the same. Just as I am sure that back in the day people would not watch CBS because they objected to Walter Cronkite.</p>
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<p>I don’t disagree with your first statement, but this is simply not true. I think I know more smokers than not (three of my roommates smoke over a pack a day) and yes, sometimes making them go further will deter them. One of them didn’t have a car for a week over the summer and wouldn’t go up to the store for a good three to four days after she ran out because it was “too far”. It’s about a 3 minute walk down the block. </p>
<p>Yes, for some it really will deter them. Sometimes, it’s not worth it to make that extra stop. For others, they’d cross state lines to get that next cigarette. </p>
<p>Not all addicts are the same. </p>
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<p>Will alcohol be added to the list too? I think they should also stop selling those CVS Valentine’s Day chocolates to force lazy lovers to buy better tasting chocolates. Or maybe they should switch the milk chocolates to dark chocolate with hemp seeds.</p>
<p>I think e-cigs and hookahs are the products gaining popularity amongst teens and I’m not sure where those are sold since I don’t actively look for them. Special hookah shops and online? So, I don’t really know if the CVS move has a big impact in kicking the nicotine habit.</p>
<p>Well, if a smoker runs out of cigarettes and doesn’t want to walk to the store to get another pack then they are a smoker but not an addict. An addict will not be deterred by having to cross the street. </p>
<p>CVS can sell or not sell whatever they want but I’m amazed anyone thinks they are doing this for some greater good rather than a simple business decision. PR really works. Wow. </p>
<p>I’d like CVS to stop selling e-smoking devices. </p>
<p>The article I read said that CVS is still deciding on what to do about e-cigarettes.</p>
<p>I think this is a business decision, but I don’t think it’s impossible that at least some of the decisionmakers at CVS also think it’s the right thing to do. If more sellers would follow suit, and tobacco became harder to find, the price might go up, which would probably reduce smoking. Of course it’s best if people quit, but it’s also a good thing if people smoke less.</p>
<p>"Well, if a smoker runs out of cigarettes and doesn’t want to walk to the store to get another pack then they are a smoker but not an addict. " My interest, and I presume the interest of other people on this thread, is to lower the amount of smoking. If a smoker smokes less, it’s immaterial to me whether they are a “smoker” or an “addict.”</p>
<p>It’s definitely true, though, that some people find it drastically more different than others to quit smoking, and a substantial part of the difference appears to be genetic. Check out this ingenious study looking at how smokers with different genetic codes respond to a rise in cigarette prices. People with the not-so-addicted gene smoked less, whereas people with the very-addicted gene didn’t smoke a bit less:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.rwjf.org/en/about-rwjf/newsroom/newsroom-content/2012/12/genetics-vs--tobacco-taxes--the-limits-of-public-policy-aimed-at.html”>http://www.rwjf.org/en/about-rwjf/newsroom/newsroom-content/2012/12/genetics-vs--tobacco-taxes--the-limits-of-public-policy-aimed-at.html</a></p>
<p>That’s why making it more difficult for teenagers to start smoking is so important. If they don’t get addicted, they won’t have to break the habit.</p>
<p>It’s a great goal but this decision by one drugstore chain doesn’t really address it. Teenagers are not lining up to buy smokes after school at CVS. And, they ID everyone under 40 so…</p>
<p>As long as cigarettes are legal someone will sell them. If all drug stores stop there will be more cigarette stores. Again, I don’t care one bit what they do or don’t sell, but the societal spin is silly.</p>