Sam’s Club Gives Kids Candy In Pill Bottles
This is a sad day for our children.
In Health,
Dr Andy
by Sandy Maple Jun 30th 2009 3:00PM
Categories: Health & safety, Weird but true
Sam’s Club targets children with ill-advised pharmacy promotion. Image: Pam Roth/sxc.huCompetition in the pharmacy business must be pretty tough these days. In order to get your business, pharmacies have begun promoting themselves like never before. These efforts to lure customers are not always met with approval. Like when some pharmacy chains started giving away free antibiotics and insinuating that the drug could be used to help fight cold and flu viruses. Experts worried that this type of promotion might send consumers the wrong message about the proper use of antibiotics.
If experts are worried about pharmacies handing out prescription drugs like candy, I wonder how they would feel about a pharmacy that hands out candy like prescription drugs. That is exactly what a Sam’s Club pharmacy in Salisbury, Maryland was doing last week.
Sams’ Club is a membership store and has a checkpoint at the entry where shoppers must show their identification before entering. But at this particular store, employees weren’t just checking member cards, they were also promoting the in-store pharmacy by giving children prescription medicine bottles filled with candy.
That’s right, they stuffed Tootsie Rolls and Dots into real prescription bottles with real prescription labels and handed them out to children. I think this takes the prize for sending the wrong message about prescription medication.
After complaints about the promotion, Sam’s Club dropped it and issued an apology. Deeming it an “isolated incident,” Sam’s Club Corporate Communications Manager Susan Koehler promised it would never happen again.
It would seem that this was a case of a rogue pharmacy department trying to be clever without corporate approval. But does it really take a degree in marketing communications to recognize the sheer stupidity of this idea?
