Free Condoms Campaign Seeks to Increase Access

Condoms are one of the best ways to protect against unwanted pregnancies and the spread of HIV and STD’s.  Yet many CVS’s around the country, including in DC, are making it difficult to obtain these contraceptives.

Mike DeAngelis, spokesperson for CVS, told WashingtonCityPaper.com that many CVS’s in DC and across the nation have placed condoms in lock-boxes to prevent potential shoplifters from “grabbing a whole bunch of condoms and running out of the store.  The stores that had to keep condoms locked experienced shoplifting to such a degree that our entire inventory was being wiped out.  There were no longer condoms available for customers to purchase.”

But Caroline Sparks, an Associate Professor of Prevention and Community Health at the George Washington University, does not believe that theft prevention is a justifiable reason to put condoms in lock-boxes.

“It takes 10 cents to produce a condom,” says Sparks.  “A three pack sells in CVS for $5.99.  We think that CVS can absorb losses from theft.  We have asked that they just make condoms a loss leader and be good citizens by helping reduce HIV rates.”

Sparks was involved in the launch of the “Save Lives: Free the Condoms” campaign in 2006, which advocates for the elimination of lock-boxes in favor of open shelves to display condoms for purchase.

“The purpose of the campaign is to get CVS to stop locking and/or restricting access to condoms in low income, primarily minority communities which have high HIV/AIDS rates,” says Sparks.  “The company does not lock condoms in primarily white neighborhoods in Washington DC.  We have also asked CVS to adopt a national policy that they will not lock condoms or restrict access to them anywhere.”

Cure CVS, a national campaign also working on this issue, has done studies that show that CVS’s are more likely to put condoms in lock-boxes in urban areas that are predominantly black, which Sparks calls “discriminatory.”

According to CureCVSNow.org, “The proportion of CVS stores that lock up condoms increases with the percentage of residents of color in the stores’ zip codes.”  You can see Cure CVS’s study here.

In response to calls for freed condoms, many CVS’s have switched to clear, plastic, vending-machine like “click-boxes,” which many stores had already been using to dispense razor blades.  Sparks, however, does not see this as a reasonable solution.

“It is difficult to get condoms from a [click-box],” said Sparks.  “Sometimes rows of [click-boxes] have a bar that locks the whole row so people still have to request a key.  If the boxes are not fully stocked, then people cannot reach into them to grasp the next box.  They also make a lot of noise and anyone near the aisle can hear customers trying to open them.”

The campaign is now a project of the Metropolitan Washington Public Health Association (MWPHA), and several graduate students in public health at GWU are now working with MWPHA on the campaign and with the DC City Council on increasing access to condoms.

-Alex Laska