
CVS Health Quits U.S. Chamber Over Stance on Smoking - andrewguenther
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/08/business/cvs-health-quits-us-chamber-over-stance-on-smoking.html?smid=fb-share
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themartorana
I know CVS is not 100% altruistic, with Caremark (sp?) being huge and there
being talk from CVS about making prescribers pay more at pharmacies that sell
cigarettes and whatnot (and how that may help make up for lost cigarette
sales) [0] - but way to take a stance and really see it through. In terms of
corporate good, this is great.

And what a horrible shame on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. I'm so sick of the
idea of the dollar above all else. Cigarettes kill people. That's it. Deciding
it's ok to not only sell these death sticks, but actively fight against the
championing of healthier living and longer lives is absolutely, totally, and
completely shameful.

[0]
[http://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-270B-850](http://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-270B-850)

~~~
baddox
> Cigarettes kill people. That's it.

That's not it. Cigarettes also bring a large amount of pleasure to people. If
you think that doesn't matter, replace it with candy bars, or any food that
isn't part of the healthiest possible diet.

~~~
bunderbunder
The occasional cigarette might bring pleasure to people. But typical cigarette
smoking has the opposite effect.

A tobacco addiction works by screwing with your brain's ability to perceive
pleasure. The result is that most cigarette smokers do not get pleasure added
to their lives by tobacco. It's just that they need to keep smoking just to
keep getting themselves back up to feeling normal.

~~~
snarfy
It's a stimulant, very similar to caffeine.

With the amount of caffeine addicts in the world I'm surprised at the
hostility towards nicotine.

~~~
chc
It's not chemical nicotine that people abhor. It's nicotine specifically in
conjunction with a bunch of awful toxins that we collectively call "tobacco."

Similarly, people are much more against caffeine in the form of sugary energy
drinks than caffeine in the form of tea, because energy drinks are bad for you
while tea is moderately good for you on the whole.

~~~
jordanthoms
Which raises the question of why so many of these people are vehemently
opposed to e-cigarettes, which are essentially just a mechanism for delivering
nicotine with some inert vapor.

~~~
danieltillett
Nicotine is directly harmful to your heart.

One of the more interesting bits of trivia about nicotine and caffeine is it
is the mode of delivery that makes nicotine so addictive. If you smoked
caffeine it would be as addictive as nicotine. Given we now have vaping it
should be possible to smoke caffeine - I haven’t looked, but I would not be
surprised if someone out there is selling smokable caffeine.

~~~
atinoda-kestrel
> Nicotine is directly harmful to your heart.

Yes, but it's worth noting that the increased risk of heart disease from
smoking is due to more than just nicotine.

~~~
danieltillett
Sure - the harm is is going to be greater when you add in all the other nasty
compounds in tobacco smoke.

It in not only smoke that is harmful as people who chew tobacco suffer an
increase in mouth cancer. While vaping should have a lower risk than smoking,
it is not risk free. Since it is so new we won’t know for sometime how
dangerous it is.

~~~
collyw
We are all going to die anyway. Non-smokers often seem to overlook that fact.

~~~
DanBC
The problem with cigarettes is not just that they kill you a little bit
sooner, but that they cause many years of life of reduced quality. There's a
bunch of stuff like COPD or stroke that don't always kill smokers but do make
their lives much less pleasant.

~~~
collyw
Non smokers often make smokers lives unpleasant. :)

~~~
DanBC
The children of smokers need hospital treatment more often than the children
of non-smokers.

Of course that selfish harmful-to-others behaviour is going to attract
condemnation.

------
arca_vorago
For those who aren't aware, it's worth it to keep in mind that the US Chamber
of Commerce is not a federal or government entity, and is rather a cleverly
named US business lobbying group with deep ties to the Republican party which
as been involved in very shady practices over the years. So it tends to be one
of those places where big companies push legislation that runs out the small
to medium sized businesses with redtape complexity to maintain market
dominance.

Of course that doesn't stop the majority of Republican congresscritters from
touting it as the best thing for "deregulation" since sliced bread...

~~~
tptacek
It's pretty silly to suggest that the GOP is an enemy of small to medium
businesses, since to a demographic first approximation, virtually every small-
medium business owner is a Republican.

The CoC is shady, like you said. And it supports the GOP. It is not itself the
GOP.

~~~
arca_vorago
While I agree the CoC is not _the_ GOP, it certainly heavily leans that way in
practice and in policy. There are notable exceptions.

"It's pretty silly to suggest that the GOP is an enemy of small to medium
businesses"

This I disagree with though. To me, having spent most of my time in GOP owned
areas, my conclusion is that the GOP parades small/medium business values to
their support base, but when it really comes down to someone writing
legislation on K-street, it _almost always favors the megacorps_. The GOP is,
indeed, in my mind at least, anti small/med business, but they sell themselves
otherwise.

They're just good at propaganda.

~~~
tptacek
GOP tax policy strongly favors small business owners. They support lower rates
across the board, and in particular _disfavor_ the Democratic party's policy
of boosting revenue with increased taxes on higher brackets (business owners
are disproportionately in the highest marginal bracket). The GOP also wants to
eliminate the AMT, and retain the mortgage interest tax deduction.

GOP health care policy strongly favors small business owners. For instance,
the GOP opposes the employer health care mandate.

The GOP's stance on regulations strongly favors small business owners: they
disfavor them pretty much across the board. On a message board, it may seem
like environmental regulations matter primarily to giant extractive industry
companies, but most industrial businesses in the US are small businesses.

I'd be interested in some specific examples of policies the GOP supports that
the Democrats don't support that _aren 't_ beneficial to small businesses.

Two caveats:

* I'm a Democrat. "Do what's best for the public school system shalt be the whole of the law" is roughly what I believe.

* The calculus is different if by "small business" you really (perhaps accidentally) mean "small tech company".

~~~
_delirium
> I'd be interested in some specific examples of policies the GOP supports
> that the Democrats don't support that aren't beneficial to small businesses.

I suppose this is more of an example of a policy that they oppose, but some
kind of healthcare reform to produce a working insurance market for individual
and small-time purchasers (i.e. not big corporations buying group plans) comes
to mind as something that benefits small businesspeople. Interestingly the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce did support Hillarycare in the '90s, but changed its
mind later.

Maybe we have different definitions of small businessperson, but I also don't
know any (across several industries) who make the $400k+ post-deductions
needed to be in the top marginal tax bracket. Not only in tech, but also in
traditional small-business areas like dry-cleaning, the restaurant business,
repair shops, or small-scale retail, only the most successful owners clear
anything near that. What definition of small businessperson has _most_ small
businesspeople being in this bracket?

~~~
tptacek
[https://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/files/Size_Standards...](https://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/files/Size_Standards_Table.pdf)

------
serve_yay
Um, why is the chamber campaigning against anti-smoking laws? How strange.

Edit: Oh, because they're funded by tobacco companies. Welp.

------
tptacek
See Mad Men, Season 4, Episode 12, "Blowing Smoke".

And then a serious question:

What does it cost CVS to leave the Chamber of Commerce? The CoC is a
conservative lobbying group. CVS already operates a 4:1 Republican-leaning
lobbying operation. Were there any material benefits to CVS to remain
affiliated with the CoC?

------
mb0
The CVS in my neighborhood sells 24oz cans of 8.1% ABV malt liquor for
$1.36/can. Have to wonder how those sales fit into their mission to improve
public health.

~~~
baudehlo
I agree that isn't a health related choice. But fighting one battle doesn't
mean they have to fight all of them.

~~~
simplexion
I believe alcohol is a far more important battle to be fighting against than
tobacco.

It's amazing people's beliefs in regards to alcohol. I had a friend, who was
already drunk, rant at me about my use of cannabis because they didn't like
the thought of something that takes away your control. Alcohol is so often
thought of as a "nothing" drug even though it is probably one of the worst
recreational drugs.

~~~
baudehlo
I think the big thing with alcohol is it's a lot harder to become addicted to.
I don't disagree that alcohol addiction is a problem (and a more damaging
social problem in some aspects - a smoker father is probably far less of an
issue than an alcoholic father). But I don't agree that going back to
prohibition would benefit the situation.

~~~
zamalek
> I think the big thing with alcohol is it's a lot harder to become addicted
> to.

Supposedly a portion of a hangover is withdrawals (which is why the "hair of
the hound that bit you" is effective). However the crux of your point remains
true: alcohol withdrawals only last a morning (by my experience) where
nicotine withdrawals last a few weeks to months (also personal experience).

The last time I drank was probably 5 days ago and I have no cravings. The last
time I smoked was 8 months ago and I have cravings at least once every 2-3
days. Tobacco is much, much, worse.

~~~
_delirium
For heavy regular drinkers, alcohol withdrawals last a lot longer, with some
symptoms (such as sleep-cycle disturbance) lasting years:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_withdrawal_syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_withdrawal_syndrome)

------
leephillips
Good for them. But I find it hard to take seriously their claim that they are
committed to improving public health when their shelves are stuffed with
homeopathic products - more all the time. Pushing this fake medicine is a
direct threat to health. It preys upon the naive and poorly educated, who will
waste their money on this quackery rather than seeking effective treatment for
their medical problems.

~~~
wpietri
I would like to agree, but most of the homeopathic remedy consumers I know are
surprisingly crafty. If you ask them if they believe that it works, they will
say yes. But if a serious illness comes up, they will immediately switch to
real medical treatment.

Put differently, they seem to have an intuitive understanding to only use
placebos for illnesses that are well served by placebos. They have no rational
understanding of that, of course. But they do get a lot more benefits from
placebos than I do, so I can't say they're entirely wrong.

~~~
leephillips
I've observed similar behavior in regard to religion, etc. But it's generally
unsound to extrapolate from the people we happen to know to whole populations
(not that I have any actual data about who uses homeopathic medicines and
how). What concerns me is that the way the stuff is shelved and advertised
looks like it would lead to an uncritical person with, say, flu symptoms to
just grab one of these boxes off the shelf.

~~~
DanBC
Boots in the UK have homeopathy on the same shelf as herbal remedies. They
ignore my gentle polite requests for them to place some distance between items
that have active ingredients and items that have no active ingredient.

------
Lorento
I think this is just a sign that there's healthy decision making going on. If
what the CoC claims is true, that Jamaica's law was passed without following
the proper process, then that is a problem and it should be challenged whether
you want the law or not. You can't have a law-making process, trademark
protections, etc and then just walk over them when you decide it's an
important law. The whole point of the process is to decide if it's the correct
law in the first place!

The CoC's purpose is to support the interests of it's members. So they
absolutely should be doing this. What good is a chamber of commerce that
arbitrarily decides to throw some of its members under the bus when new laws
threaten their businesses? The real complaint people should be making is that
it allows tobacco businesses as members, or even that the government allows
tobacco businesses to exist at all.

What shocks me the most is that the CVS pharmacy was selling cigarettes 1 year
ago! What?! Pharmacies sell cigarettes in America?!

~~~
aidenn0
> What shocks me the most is that the CVS pharmacy was selling cigarettes 1
> year ago! What?! Pharmacies sell cigarettes in America?!

[http://www.bbcamerica.com/mind-the-
gap/2013/10/29/6-differen...](http://www.bbcamerica.com/mind-the-
gap/2013/10/29/6-differences-american-drugstores-british-chemists/)

TL;DR pharmacies are located in convenience stores in the US.

~~~
tptacek
American drug stores have a complicated history. They also used to be ice
cream parlors.

~~~
wglb
I know one that still is:
[https://plus.google.com/107851275537929467936/about?hl=en](https://plus.google.com/107851275537929467936/about?hl=en).
You can still get a marshmellow coke at the soda fountain there.

------
stuaxo
Well, yes - it appears to mostly function as a front group for tobacco
companies and is nothing to do with the US government, even if they imply it
(as per last weeks article)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/01/business/international/us-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/01/business/international/us-
chamber-works-globally-to-fight-antismoking-measures.html)

------
SilasX
Can someone give the cynical spin on this? I know a lot of these companies
purport to care about stopping smoking, but is there also a profit motive?

I've heard scattered accounts that when a convenience store stops carrying
cigarettes they also draw fewer problem customers, but haven't validated it.

~~~
rathboma
CVS is rolling out walk-in clinics in their stores. So for them it makes a lot
of sense and helps them make the case they're a health focused company.

~~~
wcummings
They still have whole aisle's dedicated to beer and junk food, so it's about
more than just eliminating unhealthful offerings from their stores.

Tobacco is on the way out in the US, in 10 or 20 years you'll have to buy
tobacco in specialty stores. I think CVS just saw the writing on the wall and
seized a convenient opportunity to jettison the business.

~~~
oldmanjay
I'm not too into the "beer and junk food" line. I see a fairly large
difference between offering choices that can be unhealthy if a person overdoes
them, and helping to lobby governments to keep markets open for an addictive,
harmful drug.

~~~
vonmoltke
Depends on how you spin it. I know many people who would characterize ethanol
as an "addictive, harmful drug". Large food companies spend lots of money
trying to make their products more appealing, and by some evidence addicting.

The difference is that people can get drunk and blow out their liver or get
fat and blow out their pancreas (usually) without direct effects to those
around them. Since 90% of tobacco users have to use it in a way that blows
every bystander's lungs out while they are blowing their own out, it gets much
more vitriol.

~~~
oldmanjay
>Since 90% of tobacco users have to use it in a way that blows every
bystander's lungs out while they are blowing their own out, it gets much more
vitriol.

What's funny about this is that it's not necessarily true. The whole
"secondhand smoke" thing appears to be one of those convenient lies aimed at a
greater good. It certainly isn't blowing out anyone's lungs. Still, the
falloff in smoking is something I'm totally into, just because it stinks.

There is no science at all supporting the notion that the harm from ethanol
approaches that of tobacco, so I'm not too worried about the people you know.
In particular, the addiction rates are vastly different.

Basically, your opening sentence says it all: your point relies on spin to be
sharp.

~~~
wcummings
Many second-hand smoke studies are performed on spouses of smokers, over long
periods of time (living w/ a smoker for decades, basically). Second-hand smoke
in say, a park (where smoking is frequently banned) is not a factor. It's a
convenient lie to discourage smoking.

------
mr_spothawk
i like smoking. but it's bad for me. but i'd be bummed if i couldn't find
tobacco to smoke.

------
eladrin201
John Oliver effect, anyone?

------
simplexion
e-cig to the rescue!

------
rnikander
First they come for the tobacco, then the addictive candy that causes obesity,
then the life-wasting and mind-altering games in the app stores ...

~~~
bronson
First they came for the heroin and cocaine.

------
nemo44x
When they clear their shelves of all the soda, sugary and corn based snacks
and fake medications (homeopathic garbage) then I'll begin to take their
concern for health seriously. Obesity and diabetes is a far greater health
risk than cigarettes. Cigarettes are awful for many reasons and they smell bad
but corn and HFCS based foods make sick and kill a lot more people (and cost
society much more!) than cigarettes.

It's no wonder than countries with high rates of smoking (France, Japan) who
have diets that lack all the garbage the CVS's of the world peddle have some
of the highest life expectancies.

Smokers are just an easy, minority target to vilify and it needs to stop.

~~~
s73v3r
They have to start somewhere.

