Walgreens has worst record among pharmacies for selling tobacco products to minors

Walgreens has worst record among pharmacies for selling tobacco products to minors

https://www.bizjournals.com/chicago/news/2019/02/07/walgreens-poor-record-for-selling-minors-tobacco.html

The kids hanging around your local Walgreens may be buying more than candy.

Walgreens has the worst record among pharmacies regarding selling tobacco products to minors, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Thursday.

The Deerfield, Illinois-based pharmacy racked up about 1,800 violations for selling tobacco products to kids across the United States. That means about 22 percent of Walgreens stores inspected have illegally sold the products to underage customers, per the report.

“I will be writing the corporate management of Walgreens (NASDAQ: WBA) and requesting a meeting with them to discuss whether there is a corporate-wide issue related to their stores’ non-compliance and put them on notice that the FDA is considering additional enforcement avenues to address their record of violative tobacco sales to youth,” FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in a statement.

The administration has taken action with a Walgreens store in Miami and is seeking to bar the the store from selling any tobacco products for 30 days. The FDA has already sent more than 1,550 warning letters and 240 civil monetary penalty actions against Walgreens stores in the U.S. for selling the products to minors.

An estimated 4.9 million middle and high school students reported current (past 30 days) use of any tobacco product in 2018, according to preliminary results of the 2018 National Youth Tobacco Survey.

An epidemic-level rise in e-cigarette use over the last year has also led overall tobacco product use to increase by 38 percent among high school students (to 27.1 percent) and by 29 percent among middle school students (to 7.2 percent) in the last year, reversing the declines seen in the last few years.

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