|
 “Compared to other types of stores, pharmacies charged customers
less for cigarettes, more for bottled water,” said lead author Lisa
Henriksen of the Stanford Prevention Research Center at Stanford
University School of Medicine in Palo Alto.
“It’s surprising that stores that are supposed to promote health
sell the world’s deadliest product of all, and even worse that they
sell it at the cheapest price,” Henriksen said.
Pharmacies represent 7 percent of the 380,000 tobacco retailers
nationwide, Henriksen and her colleagues write in the American
Journal of Public Health, online August 23.
Convenience stores sell many more cigarettes, but pharmacies offer
them at cheaper prices, she told Reuters Health.
“Price is the single best predictor of use, with lower cigarette
prices driving higher smoking rates, lower quitting rates, and
higher rates of smoking initiation among teens,” she said. “The most
vulnerable population groups are also the most price sensitive,
which is why the findings about neighborhood disparities in prices
are also important.”
Researchers found that among pharmacies, Newport menthol cigarettes,
popular among African Americans, were among the cheapest brands, and
they cost even less at stores in neighborhoods with a higher
proportion of black residents.
The researchers randomly selected more than 500 licensed tobacco
retailers in California in 2014 and recorded the prices of their
Marlboro cigarettes, Newport cigarettes and the cheapest cigarettes
available as well as the price of bottled water.
They gathered similar data from more than 2,000 retailers across the
U.S. near schools with eighth, tenth and twelfth graders in 2012.
In both studies, the least expensive cigarettes per store were
cheaper in pharmacies – by $0.47 to $1.19, on average, in
California. Bottled water, which may reflect the pricing of a range
of other goods, cost more in pharmacies than in other stores, like
convenience stores.
While bottled water prices did not vary by neighborhood
demographics, the cost of Newport and other cigarettes varied by
race or neighborhood income and age profiles.
[to top of second column] |
Amanda Amos, professor of health promotion at the University of
Edinburgh in Scotland, told Reuters Health by email that she was
“shocked and bemused” to learn pharmacies in the U.S. would sell
cigarettes, which are the most lethal legal product on the market
and kill half of all regular users.
“Pharmacies (in the U.K.) would never sell cigarettes as this does
not fit in with their health promoting role,” said Amos, who was not
part of the new study. “Rather, most pharmacies would see their role
as helping smokers to quit through providing nicotine replacement
products and support.”
Amos worked on two reviews for the European Commission that found
increasing the real price of cigarettes was the most effective way
to reduce smoking uptake in young people and increase adult
quitting, she said.
Henriksen noted that laws prohibiting tobacco sales in pharmacies
are rare in the U.S., despite wide public support in polls. San
Francisco passed the first law and 70 percent of Massachusetts
residents live in jurisdictions with tobacco-free pharmacies.
“Apart from whether it decreases smoking, it has the added advantage
of denormalizing tobacco and reducing its availability,” she said.
“There are many more tobacco retailers than needed to meet demand
for the product.”
For jurisdictions looking to reduce the number of tobacco retailers,
pharmacies are an obvious choice, she said. “Tobacco-free pharmacies
are low hanging fruit for state and local tobacco control.”
[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
