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The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals today rejected the appeal by Philip Morris that the company has a first amendment right to sell its killer products wherever it pleases. San Francisco’s law to prevent pharmacies, seen by consumers as retail establishments that vend healthy products, from selling tobacco must now withstand another challenge from the pharmacy retail industry itself.
Removing tobacco sales from the pharmacy is an important part of helping Americans live healthier. It eliminates confusion about the role of your local pharmacies: if they sell products that are good for you, why would they also sell tobacco?
The ordinance, the first of its kind in the nation, took effect in October. It prohibits sales of cigarettes and other tobacco products at San Francisco’s nearly 60 drugstores.
Philip Morris said the ban effectively forced the company to pull its advertising out of the stores, interfering with its constitutional right to communicate with customers.
Commercial speech being so important to our current Supreme Court, though, we can probably expect an appeal by Big Tobacco on behalf of their customers who suddenly can no longer be reached in pharmacies.
"The purpose and effect of the ordinance is to suppress communications directed to adult smokers, in violation of our constitutional rights," said company spokesman Jack Marshall.
Why do I have the feeling that Philip Morris is carefully watching the votes and outcome of the current Citizens United case before SCOTUS? Commercial speech protection is very trendy with the Roberts Court; will they decline Big Tobacco’s appeal of the Radical Ninth’s unanimous panel ruling? Stay tuned.
36 Comments
“if they sell products that are good for you, why would they also sell tobacco?”; aw,c’mon Teddy. ‘Pharmacies’(drugstores) also sell alcohol AND are purveyors of the prescription drugs that addict many people.
While I worry big time about SCoTUS and the judicial activism they are showing regards ‘free speech’, SF’s ordinance is just silly, especially in view of the new oversight given to the FDA re tobacco.
Pharmacies in SF sell beer but not spirits. I think it’s confusing to have pharmacies sell things that are bad for you; people equate pharmacies with health.
But I think the pharmacies have a better case in state court, arguing as they do that Safeways and BigBox stores with pharmacies are still allowed to sell tobacco products.
Cigarettes kill. The faster our culture recognizes that, the better. There’s lots of places that still sell cigarettes, but pharmacies probably shouldn’t be among them.
“Safeways and BigBox stores with pharmacies are still allowed to sell tobacco products.” ; appreciate the clarification
FWIW, it has now been shown that it is genes that determine whether a smoker -or non-smoker- gets lung cancer.
That’s not a defense of taking hot particulated air into one’s lungs but if one is for the legalization of marijuana -which I personally am- one can’t-without being hypocritical- rule out others rights to take hot particulated air into their bodies.
It’s the additives in tobacco cigarettes that are poison, too; these are not present in mj. Plus, there’s lots of other ways to get stoned than smoking pot. And those ways are usually healthier for you, aren’t they?
“It’s the additives in tobacco cigarettes that are poison, too; these are not present in mj.”—-and one can get and smoke additive free tobacco but that doesn’t satisfy those who are ‘anti-tobacco’
“Plus, there’s lots of other ways to get stoned than smoking pot. And those ways are usually healthier for you, aren’t they?” ; yup but I prefer getting high to getting stoned and smoking is faster and consumes less than cookies,brownies,etc.
Probably tmi but there is a difference between getting high and stoned; stoned is numbing, high is awareness. Too much numbness out there.
Don’t forget that dope helps stop pain. It works when nothing else will or nothing else can be tolerated.
Related topic. My husband, who died in 1987, had given up smoking a year or two before his death. He has been a heavy smoker for 35 years before his death, yet the autoposy showed his lungs were pink and healthy. Think there’s a lot we don’t know about tobacco and health.
He must have been older than you by twenty years. at least.
19 years older. Death was suicide by gunshot, which is why there had to be an autopsy. Which is why I was able to satisfy my curiosity about the lung condition.
I am sorry for your loss. I have read elsewhere that the lungs do repair themselves quite swiftly upon stopping smoking.
A year or two seemed quite remarkable to me. I wish there were more research and less ideology on the subject. The amount of addiction, and the medical consequences are still pretty murky I think. Not denying that smoking is unhealthy, as a general proposition. Just would like to see more light, rather than the heat that current dominates the debate.
My husband’s death was by pharmacy. We need to talk.
That sounds dire. If you wish, you can email me at rosannecahn at email dot com. My husband’s death was self-determined. Quite different from death being inflicted by another source.
Hard to believe S.F. has only 60 pharmacies.
SF is widely viewed elsewhere as a large city. It has only slightly more than 800,000 citizens in 49 square miles (land). It ranks 12th among American cities in population.
They probably needed more liquor stores and fewer pharmacies anyway. The law of unintended consequences marches on.
w00t! Corporate tobacco suxxit.
A bit of history of we got fucked by the rich!
Our Hidden History of Corporations in the United States
snip
Government spending during the Civil War brought these corporations fantastic wealth. Corporate executives paid “borers” to infest Congress and state capitals, bribing elected and appointed officials alike. They pried loose an avalanche of government financial largesse. During this time, legislators were persuaded to give corporations limited liability, decreased citizen authority over them, and extended durations of charters. Attempts were made to keep strong charter laws in place, but with the courts applying legal doctrines that made protection of corporations and corporate property the center of constitutional law, citizen sovereignty was undermined. As corporations grew stronger, government and the courts became easier prey. They freely reinterpreted the U.S. Constitution and transformed common law doctrines.
One of the most severe blows to citizen authority arose out of the 1886 Supreme Court case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. Though the court did not make a ruling on the question of “corporate personhood,” thanks to misleading notes of a clerk, the decision subsequently was used as precedent to hold that a corporation was a “natural person.”
From that point on, the 14th Amendment, enacted to protect rights of freed slaves, was used routinely to grant corporations constitutional “personhood.” Justices have since struck down hundreds of local, state and federal laws enacted to protect people from corporate harm based on this illegitimate premise. Armed with these “rights,” corporations increased control over resources, jobs, commerce, politicians, even judges and the law.
A United States Congressional committee concluded in 1941, “The principal instrument of the concentration of economic power and wealth has been the corporate charter with unlimited power….”
snip
The fucking rest is history.. one fuckup and we have been getting screwed by the concentration of money!
With Roberts on the SCOUTUS we are doubly fucked!! You know he and his cohorts will side with Corporate free speech and also let them pour money into Elections and make this a country of the rich and foreign countries such as China and Saudi Arabia…
ah, so. the resident must maintain the bottom line.
Why would it not surprise me to hear that The Supremes rule that citizens have no right to free speech, but corporations do. It would be in line with the Roberts/Scalito line of thinking.
might a well. they certainly have nothing to lose. They are no longer even pretending that we count. Real stoopid if you ask me. In the short run they will make billions. In the long run we will take them down with us.
I kinda liked how in Vancouver the drugstores did sell cigs but they were very hard to find and not displayed and in the cruddiest part of the store. And muy expensive of course. Also liked the massive warnings on the pack. Belgium goes further on the pack, with the graphic pix of smoke-caused horrors. I understand that’s coming here, which I applaud. There’s not a single good thing that can be said about smoking.
I quit at 30, started again at 45. Fuck me. Godspeed to all societal oppression of smoking. Thank gods at the moment for my house and car ..
I have been a non-smoker for more than two years and my partner a non-smoker for more than eight months. We are very happy with our decision. And quite a bit chubbier, but that battle comes next.
Seeing as how Republicans are big on “free speech zones” why not set up such a zone a block away from the pharmacy. If it’s good enough for human citizens, it’s good enough for corporate citizens.
Then again I also liked the ease Vancouver afforded me in sidewalk purchase of BC bud. They got their priorities better up there.
Smoking weed makes me want a cigarette. So I smoke a LOT less weed since I quit, not wanting to be tempted.
An inlaw, distant, developed serious throat cancer from smoking weed, and only weed. He had surgery decades ago, before I met him, and seems to be doing fine. But still, smoker beware, regardless of what’s in the enhalant.
Just read the post and the thing that struck me was the quote:
“The purpose and effect of the ordinance is to suppress communications directed to adult smokers, in violation of our constitutional rights,” said company spokesman Jack Marshall.”
How do they think (and how can they be so stupid as to say) that only “adults” will see the adverts?
Are pharmacies like adult bookstores, no minors allowed?
How much is this guy being paid to say such incredibly, transparently stupid things?
Lots.
I knew that.
Sometimes I really hope there is a Hell.
Other times I hope there’s not.
We want to sell all those killers weeds we can, said Jack Marshall, who probably has the good sense not to smoke.
Dontcha know that smoking saves medical costs, since smokers die early? Don’t know if you remember when a tobacco spokesperson came out with those words of wisdom (which may even be true). Some time in the 90s.
Sorry Teddy, You’re way off base here. SF makes lots of dumb ordinances that make some people (Chris Daly) feel sorta kinda good about making other people “better off” but really just make their lives more inconvenient. Not letting Walgreens sell cigarettes, but the Safeway less than a block away can, is nothing short of stupid.
I just don’t get it. Some people have such a visceral hatred of tobacco that it makes otherwise reasonable folks become horribly paternalistic and even common sense seems to disappear.
And along the same lines, if we get healthcare reform, do we get the S-CHIP taxes repealed? Remember that regressive tax from April that raised the tax on a # of loose (aka roll-your-own) tobacco from $1.10 to $23.68. Thats a 2,159% increase. But hey it’s bad for people right? So they deserve it.
A way around the tax has already been acted upon by some tobacco growers if you’re an ryo person.
The fewer places that sell cigarettes, the better. And places that people associate with health (pharmacies) shouldn’t sell tobacco. Yes, it’s paternalistic. It’s San Francisco. We know what’s best for you here.
San Francisco has more nutjobs per square mile than anyplace on the planet.