Wegmans To Stop Selling Cigarettes

Starting next month, Wegmans will no longer sell any tobacco products.

Quoting WBEN:

The Rochester-based company, which has consistently been voted among the best places to work, told its employees that "heatlh concerns outweigh any profits the company gets from tobacco products."

Quoting Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids:

Wegmans has rightly recognized that tobacco products are no ordinary consumer products.  Rather, they are the leading preventable cause of death in the United States, killing more than 400,000 people, sickening millions more and costing the nation nearly $100 billion in health care bills each year.

It’s not every day that you read about a company voluntarily doing the right thing, especially when the right thing will probably cost them some profit, at least in the short term.

Now if only the government could summon half the moral courage that Wegmans has demonstrated here, and at least make it illegal for smokers to kill other people with their tobacco products, by passing a public smoking ban.