RIAFP Policy
Brief: 1/5/01
Pharmacy Tobacco
Sales and Distribution
This winter,
the Rhode Island General Assembly will consider revamping the statute,
H-8279, which controls the licensing of registered pharmacists.
The Rhode Island Academy of Family Physicians encourages all retailers
to place tobacco products behind sales counters and out of plain view,
to reduce access of young Rhode islanders to tobacco products.
But the sale
of tobacco products by pharmacies is particularly troubling.
The public associates
pharmacies with medicines and other products that promote health.
That association implies that what is sold in pharmacies has at least
the tacit approval of both the pharmacist and the doctors who write
the prescriptions that trigger the public's patronage of pharmacies.
We believe that
the sale of tobacco products in pharmacies should be outlawed as part
of the revision of the statue licensing registered pharmacists in
Rhode Island.
We depend on
our relationships with the pharmacist members of the health care team.
Let's let health care worker's promote health, and not encourage or
promote illness and death, however inadvertently.
This is one
in a series of reports designed to advance Family Practice and primary
care in Rhode Island's health care system, as well as to discuss public
health issues of importance to all Rhode Islanders.
We welcome
the opportunity to further discuss the issues presented here. We can
be reached by phone at 401-453-4176, or by email at info@riafp.org.
1/5/01
