Costco has been reportedly reducing its inventory of tobacco products. The double-digit reduction in sales is partly caused by the proliferation of vaporizers. Decades of unattractive ads and warnings for tobacco products, hiding the questionable ingredients behind ominous grey cabinets in stores, and thousands of reports of its dangers didn’t seem to damage sales entirely.
As health food industry people, it has irked some of us that tobacco, such a dangerous and unhealthy substance, a known carcinogen and leading cause of strokes and heart attacks, is still allowed legal sale, yet many herbs with notable health benefits and some small side effects are banned. This isn’t a reference to marijuana, although it does apply to its medical application.
Back to vaporizers, some municipalities have or wish to ban them as well. Perhaps they could be handed out to all tobacco smokers if it will lead them to eventually quit their nicotine addiction as some media outlets have reported.
What benefits are there for the retailer who still sells cigarettes and tobacco products? Eventually, a smart retailer will stop carrying a line that is continually failing in sales. Will we see tobacco products become strictly a black market commodity if the government bans its sale?
