June 1, 2010 
One of the big ways that retail pharmacies make money is off their front end sales. Now, a significant portion of those sales are the things that make us obese (candy, snack food, soda, ice cream, tobacco) which ultimately leads to many other conditions (diabetes, hypertension).
So, I guess the question is whether these places can play both sides. [And, I’ll give the credit to Adam Fein for asking this question at a meeting last week.] Can they sell us the convenient goods that we would buy anyways in a 24×7 easily accessible location AND become a health destination?
On the one hand, they have all the assets – pharmacy, clinics, medical supplies, vitamins, health professionals, data, etc. – that we need to manage our health. On the other hand, they enable us to easily be unhealthy. Should they care? Should they be like the soda companies who voluntarily removed soda from schools? Or should they be smart business people and just capitalize on people’s wants?
It’s an interesting question. What do you think?
Enabling Healthy Decisions 
You could also think about it as a (very) long term business strategy:
Sell you cigarettes, soda, junk food, and candy today.
Sell you prescriptions to treat your diabesity in 20 years.
😉
Adam