The Predatory Pricing Of Nicotine Replacement Therapies

The braying donkeys of the British mainstream right, which is in fact a far right for all practical purposes, often bray at their opponents that if they are opposed to the business practices of supermarkets then they should not shop in them.

This begs the answer that the world the braying donkeys have helped create is one where there are few shops other than supermarkets, and that even their opponents have the right to eat.

Yesterday's storm in a whisky glass over a supermarket chain's apparent determination to flout the spirit of the law if not its letter, yet another example of a crappily drafted law having oozed out of the Queen's Scottish outhouse for no apparent purpose other than to cause confusion amongst those delegated with its enforcement and contempt amongst those upon whom it is supposed to be enforced, is not the worst example of antisocial business practice by supermarkets I have come across. The worst is one I have recently encountered myself.

I stopped smoking on 9th April this year but continue to use nicotine replacement therapy, specificially Nicorette 4 mg Freshmint gum, sold in packets of 105. These are not prescription medicines. I have purchased them at the branch of Boots on Crow Road, Glasgow at a price of £15.00 per box, if memory serves. I have also purchased them from my local supermarket, at an initial price of £10.00, again if memory serves.

However, the supermarket later cut the price for a packet of 105 Nicorette 4 mg Freshmint gums to £5.00. At the same time, it was retailing a packet of Nicorette 2 mg Freshmint gum, if I recall correctly also a packet of 105, for £8.00; more money for less nicotine, or, if you prefer, less money for more nicotine. At that point, I resolved not to buy anymore. However, my willpower has wavered. When I went to check this afternoon, it looked like the deals were off, and they certainly didn't have any packets of 105 Nicorette 4 mg Freshmint gums on display.

A medicine remains a medicine even when it does not require a prescription. I cannot see how that supermarket chain's decision to charge £5.00 for a medicine which sells for £15.00 in a pharmacy can be anything other than predatory pricing. The predatory pricing of goods that make you well is, to my mind, even more morally reprehensible than the predatory pricing of goods that make you ill. You stop taking the latter when you get ill, but need the former to restore yourself and will suffer more when the price goes up.

The only rational explanation I can think of for this apparently irrational pricing behaviour is that the supermarket might intend its customers to become accustomed to cheap nicotine, and when that's withdrawn they will have second thoughts about not visiting the cigarette stand. If that's the case, then the time has come for the operation of supermarkets to be licenced.