February 19, 2014 Article

The Old Coot knows when to quit.
By Merlin Lessler

CVS Corporation is giving up cigarettes! Good for them! It was stunting their growth, according to a spokesman. Just like my mother predicted when she caught me puffing on one of my father’s cigarettes when I was 10. I quit too. But, relapsed when I got to high school. It’s not easy, this quitting cigarettes thing. I tried it many times before I was successful.

Of course, we don’t really know if CVS will succeed. They’re not going cold turkey. They’re promising to quit in October. It’s never a good idea to announce breaking a bad habit way ahead of time. You usually don’t follow through. Like many cigarette quitters, they are doing it for the money. They expect to profit in the long run by cleaning up their image as a health provider.

Unfortunately, the PR people got involved and decided to use it as an image-maker, to gain positive publicity. They just couldn’t resist mentioning, over and over, the 5 billion in sales revenue they were giving up. Of course, that doesn’t tell the whole story. PR people never do. They aren’t losing 5 billion in profit, only gross sales. When you take out the cost of the cigarettes, the tax, the cost of the lock cabinets they keep the stuff in, the clerk’s time to get the cigs and the sales of other products that can be displayed on the tobacco shelves their loss in profits is quite small. But, it’s a nice spin from the PR people. As a former PR spinner myself, I have to give them credit for a masterful job of grabbing headlines for something they haven’t even done yet, and with nobody asking, “Why not quit right now?”

I’m thinking of buying a pack before they give up the habit in October. As a souvenir. For my great grandchildren. Framed and authenticated as one of the last tobacco purchases at CVS. In 50 years it could be a winner on the Antique Road Show. A $5 pack of cigs worth $5,000. Unlike the old pack of Pall Malls from the 1950’s I have kicking around in a box in the garage. It’s a 20-cent pack that my grandfather kept in the top drawer of his dresser after he quit. In case of an emergency. It’s never been opened.

I wish CVS luck, the company, but not the PR guys. I still think they should have gone the John Wayne, cowboy movie route. Kept their mouths shut and just quit. If someone noticed and asked about it, they could have looked down at their feet, kicked up a little dust and said, “Shucks maam; it was nothing.”