State Attorneys General urge retailers to stop selling tobacco products

 Chalk this story up in the government overreach category. 28 state Attorneys general sent a letter to five retailers “urging” them to stop selling tobacco products because these retailers also sell health products.

A group of 28 U.S. attorneys general is urging chief executive officers of five major retailers, including Walmart, to stop selling tobacco products, saying it is contradictory to carry such items in stores that also provide health care services.

The companies receiving a letter on Sunday from the group were Wal-Mart Stores Inc, supermarket operators Kroger Co, Safeway Inc, which operate pharmacies, and drugstore chains Walgreen Co and Rite Aid Corp.

“Pharmacies and drug stores, which increasingly market themselves as a source for community health care, send a mixed message by continuing to sell deadly tobacco products,” New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a statement on Monday.

  My question is simple: who cares if they are sending a mixed message? Or, to quote a former Secretary of State, what difference does it make?

   But are they really sending a mixed message when you think about it? What are these retailers’ message other than the fact they offer many different products to many different people at the convenience of being a one-stop shopping place?

  These retailers are not health stores and while they may offer health products they are not limited to those products and they should be able to sell a product as long as that product is legal. If a retailer decides on its own to stop selling tobacco products that is one thing, but to have the big boot of the government step in and try to dictate what they can and cannot sell is another issue altogether.

  What is next? Should these retailers stop selling auto care products which supposedly contribute to global warming because they may also offer “green” or organic products which are meant to save the planet? Is that not also a “mixed message?” They also sell frozen food which is not healthy while selling health products, is that not also a “mixed message?”

  It is interesting to note here that while these state Attorneys General are trying to stop retailers from selling tobacco products the Federal government is ignoring state laws on marijuana which violate Federal law, isn’t it? And while all this is going on the Federal government is ignoring immigration laws while cracking down on states which pass immigration laws that the Feds deem contrary to the immigration laws they are ignoring in the first place–talk about a “mixed message!”

  On a side note, what do you think would happen if these retailers decided to stop sending a “mixed message” by halting the sale of health products instead of tobacco products?