Washington Times deceives its readers on CVS campaign

(crossposted from Amplify)

Last Thursday, the organizations behind the campaign to get CVS to finally stop locking up their condoms held a rally in front of a CVS in Dupont Circle of Washington, DC. As we’ve detailed extensively , despite the fact that Walgreens and RiteAid have both made national policies to keep condoms unlocked, CVS has failed to do so. In fact, a recent study shows that while CVS has open condom access in wealthier communites, it keeps their condoms locked up in communities of color, areas that typically have higher rates of STD/HIV.

Yet Amanda Carpenter of the Washington Times chose to totally distort the entire purpose of the campaign in her column last Friday:

Pro-union organizations are waging war on a major pharmacy chain because it keeps condoms locked up in some of its stores.

But not the store they chose for a protest Thursday.

Change to Win, a coalition of labor organizations, held a news conference outside a Dupont Circle CVS on Thursday urging the drugstore to enact a corporate policy of keeping condoms unlocked at all times.

However, when The Washington Times called the store at 6 Dupont Circle NW, the person who took the call, who declined to be named, said that store’s condoms are not locked up. A trip to the store later confirmed this.

Also, given that Change to Win’s "CureCVS" accuses the drugstore of limiting access to HIV/AIDS prevention in predominantly minority areas, it seems odd to choose a wealthy neighborhood known as a gay mecca to make the point.

No… actually if you had bothered to read what the campaign is about , you would know that this is a perfect example of what we’re fighting against. In wealthy, white communities, the condoms are unlocked. Yet CVS locks them up in communities of color. Also, at no point in her column does she mention that Walgreens and RiteAid have national policies against this practice (and yes, the scourge of "condom shoplifting" hasn’t put them out of business).

But hey, misleading distortions have never gotten in the way of the Washington Times, so why should we expect anything else from them.

What you can do is sign our petition to tell CVS to finally unlock the condoms in all of their stores. It’s time for CVS to join their competitors and end this archaic policy.