Boston Expected to Prohibit Cigarette Sales at Colleges, Drugstores

Retailers and pharmacies based on college campuses in Boston would be banned from selling tobacco products under new regulations.

If approved, the law would come into effect next year. Retailers that break the ban would face fines of up to $2,000. Boston also bans smoking in outdoor areas of restaurants and bars and shutting down all cigar bars in the city.

Barbara Ferrer, executive director of the Boston Public Health Commission, said: “Selling tobacco is incompatible with the mission of the city’s 74 pharmacies. “Why, in a place where people go to get healthy and get information about staying healthy, would you want to sell something that has absolutely no redeeming value and ends up killing a lot of people?”

Some pharmacies spoke out against the proposed sales prohibition. Walgreens spokesperson Carol Hively said: “Customers who purchase tobacco products in our stores also would lose the benefit of having pharmacists available to counsel them on how to quit smoking and lose the benefit of seeing smoking-cessation products.”

Critics said that the new bans would only change the buying habits of smokers, not prevent them from smoking. Michael Siegel, a tobacco-control expert at the Boston University School of Public Health said: “I just don’t see the government’s role in regulating the consistency of the mission of a store. Just to extend this, should the public-health mission also ban the sale of candy bars in pharmacies? If we’re going to get rid of cigarettes, why don’t we also get rid of soda? We know soda causes obesity.”

Information Provided by: Cigarette Sales