I also thought CVS dropped cigarettes from their stores.
Junk food and alcohol won’t kill you when consumed in moderation. Cigarettes will.
I’ve often often heard it remarked that Europeans find American drug stores a little baffling. For us, a pharmacy is the place you go to get your makeup, toiletries, and junk food … and, also, they’ve got some room in the back where they’ll sell you Aspirin and fill your prescriptions. With that conception, it’s not weird at all that they’d also sell cigarettes. Someone in the UK, however, apparently thinks of a pharmacy as something much more akin to a medical office. Although I have no idea whether they sell tobacco products. I’m guessing not.
CVS is absolutely doing this. You might notice, for example, that the company is now called CVS Health. I saw an article that said the company sees that, with Obamacare resulting in more Americans being insured, that there are growth opportunities beyond just filling scripts and selling sundries.
I don’t think any of the drugstore chains in our area sell cigarettes or tobacco products any more. I know for sure our local CVS hasn’t for years. There are smoking cessation products in the area where the cigarettes used to be
Basically the modern chain pharmacy is a combination of:
- The traditional pharmacy
- A replacement for the old variety store (Kresge, Woolworth…)
- A convenience store (except no gasoline)
Exactly. I don’t think of a “pharmacy,” in American parlance, to mean a place specializing in prescriptions and basic health care (as it means in most of the world, in my experience.) It’s basically a convenience store that has a traditional literal pharmacy in it.
I believe, in the early days of the automobile, drivers has to buy their gas at pharmacies.
What the… I have not ever seen that in any Pharmacy around these parts.
In Australia, the only thing sold at a PHARMACY that could be considered non-therapeutic* are little bags of jelly-beans at the counter.
*They do sell shit like Rescue Remedy and some snake-oils, but nothing that is guaranteed to kill you like ciggies and booze.
The ones in New York State all say “Pharmacy department within” no doubt for some legal reason related to the fact that they are 85% convenience store with a small traditional pharmacy.
If I wanted to buy a Chia-Pet, I’d head straight to a pharmacy.
While purely anecdotal, that’s gotta mean something.
And even those jelly beans are marketed as a quick source of sugar for diabetics.
Well, perhaps not ‘quite’ a medical office, but certainly a shop focussed on health and body (inc. make-up and scent), with medical professionals (pharmacists) on hand. Some larger ones will also have opticians, or nurses who dispense flu shots. So, no tobacco, although I don’t know of any law which bans them from doing so. Boots (the largest pharmacy group) used to sell beer and wine making kits, not sure if they still do.
However, I went into a Walgreens in San Francisco last week and can certainly see that it’s much more of a convenience store than our average pharmacy. I went in there to buy a public transport pass, which I wouldn’t do in Boots.
In Italian pharmacies, all the staff wear lab coats.
The last time I was in a mall, the manicure people (do they have a name?) were wearing white coats.
There’s actually a pharmacy-only business around here. The only items they have out for sale are OTC drugs; the rest is a prescription counter. They stay in business because they’re the only place that compounds medicines to order, so if your doctor prescribes a dosage that’s out of the ordinary, people have to go there. It’s also a neighborhood pharmacy and a lot of people go there instead of CVS, which is about a two-minute drive away.
But, ultimately, a “Pharmacy” is the name of the type of business, not a description.
Depends on where you live. In some states, alcohol can be sold only in liquor stores, and in other places, beer and wine can be sold in grocery stores and convenience stores, but not cold. There may not be enough market for it to be bought unchilled from small stores where space is premium.
In Indiana, only liquor stores can sell beer chilled, so while grocery stores, mega-marts, and a few very large pharmacies sell it, smaller pharmacies and convenience stores rarely do, even though they could.
When I was a kid, I thought it was weird that a cousin called them “Pharmacies” – in my town there were three of them, and they were all called “Drug Stores”. All had a soda fountain,and one of them was a high school hangout.
The pharmacy doesn’t sell cigarettes, the front checkout counter does. Every drug store I’ve been in (CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid, Duane Reade, etc) has a separate medical pharmacy inside the store. The pharmacy is but a small part of the entire store.
To be fair, it is in Boots too (they sell a lot of shampoo). You’ll see from their website that they look more like a beauty shop.
For some reason, they’ve always processed photo film too.