SouthCoast cities and towns join growing roster to ban tobacco products in pharmacies

Westport has joined a tide of communities snuffing-out pharmacy tobacco sales in SouthCoast and beyond. Westport's new rule, approved in August by the town's Board of Health, went into effect in October and bans tobacco sales in all pharmacies as health care institutions, according to Judith Coykendall, program manager for the Seven Hills Behavioral Health Tobacco-Free Community Partnership. Coykendall — whose program is funded by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health's Tobacco Cessation and Prevention Program — has urged communities to pass these regulations.

Joining her are DPH-funded programs such as the Western Bristol County and Foxboro Tobacco and Alcohol Prevention Collaborative and its counterpart, the Five County Regional Tobacco and Alcohol Education Program. The latter covers several other SouthCoast communities, Cape Cod and the Islands and areas of the South Shore. "My role ... is to bring these initiatives to the boards of health and explain to them how they work and what they involve, and then it's the boards' decisions to go forward or not," said Marilyn Edge, director of the Western Bristol County and Foxboro collaborative.

She said regulation language is provided by attorneys from the Massachusetts Municipal Association and the Massachusetts Association of Health Boards. Sometimes, she said, local health boards opt against implementing the ban because they have no pharmacies selling tobacco anyway; others don't see the issue as a priority. "We've been talking about this in Westport for a very long time," said Edge, who noted that CVS and the Westport Apothecary are the only two pharmacies in town. "One of the hesitations, when we first started talking about this, was no one wanted to adversely affect the business of the independent (pharmacy)."

 But then the Westport Apothecary voluntarily stopped selling cigarettes, "which was fabulous," she said, noting that independent pharmacies in Fall River also ceased tobacco sales well before that city's ban. A list from the Massachusetts Municipal Association shows the cigarette clamp-down flaring up all over the state. Following Boston's passage of a pharmacy tobacco ban in 2008, \ more than 45 cities and towns in Massachusetts had passed similar rules as of the end of September — including New Bedford, Dartmouth, Fairhaven, Rochester, Wareham and Fall River.

The bans pertain to independent pharmacies, pharmacies in hospitals, chains like CVS and supermarkets that contain pharmacies within them, according to D.J. Wilson, the Massachusetts Municipal Association's tobacco control director. Pharmacies are "supposed to be promoting health-related type products and not selling cancer-related products, like cigarettes," said Karen Walega, health director in Rochester, which passed the pharmacy tobacco ban earlier this year. Walega serves a dual role as health director in Marion, where she said the health board is also considering tobacco regulations. Bob Collett, the director of the Five County program, said he plans to make a case for the ban in Acushnet and Mattapoisett, too.

 Pharmacy tobacco sales send the wrong message, according to Coykendall, who said smokers can still buy cigarettes at convenience stores and gas stations. "The implied message to youth is if they sell this in a health care institution, then it must be not that dangerous," she said. She also described pharmacy tobacco sales as a troubling trigger to anyone shopping at these stores for smoking cessation aides. "Why would you be selling an addictive product in a health care institution and in the same store, you're selling products to help them get over that addiction?" she asked. Many cities and towns have passed rules extending to other retailers, such as regulations on electronic cigarettes. Some communities have also prohibited individual sales of cheap, flavored cigars.

 But at what point does clamping down on tobacco and nicotine products trample on personal freedom? A man smoking in downtown New Bedford Friday afternoon said pharmacy tobacco sales should be restricted only if voters approve it. "I don't need somebody to tell me what to do at 60 years old," said the man, who declined to give his name. "I don't think that the politicians should be making rules for everybody else." Others lighting up in the city Friday didn't see the ban as an infringement on smokers' rights.

 Since pharmacies sell medicine, "it makes sense to do it, but it is a slight inconvenience, I guess," said Adam DeAraujo, 23, who works downtown and said he used to buy his cigarettes at the nearby Rite Aid. Tony Abreu, 29, lives in Fall River, where pharmacy tobacco sales have been banned since 2011. He said he's fine with restrictions as long as stores don't stop selling cigarettes altogether. "It didn't really bother me," he said. "Cigarettes were more expensive at CVS anyway."