Pharmacies offer health care services and hold themselves out as helping people on the path to better health. But placing soda and candy at checkout is an effective marketing strategy that elicits unplanned, impulse buys. Industry research shows that 72 percent of people shopping at drug stores bought an item at checkout in the past year. Even if shoppers resist temptation at checkout most of the time, giving in occasionally could be enough to tip their scales. 

Walgreens can sell candy and soda if it wants to. But the nation’s largest pharmacy should not be inducing people to buy these products when they didn’t plan to. Better to put soda and candy in the center of the store, where people can choose to shop those aisles if they want to. 

If Walgreens really wants its customers to be happy and healthy, it should keep the checkout area healthy and free from junk food.

Please join the Center for Science in the Public Interest in urging Walgreens to stop pushing candy and soda on its customers. Leave it up to individuals to choose when and where to get a treat.