Shameless.

That’s the word that came to mind when I saw Monday’s news that Walgreens is launching a new sales initiative aimed at cancer patients, while continuing to peddle the leading cause of cancer: cigarettes.

Deerfield-based Walgreens Boots Alliance announced Monday that some 3,000 of its beauty-aisle sales clerks have been trained to advise people who need help dealing with various side effects of cancer. These “beauty consultants” will pitch products to treat hair loss, dry skin, fatigue and other cancer-related conditions.

Of course, Walgreens portrays the “feel more like you” program not as a crass attempt to capitalize on the needs of people suffering from a deadly disease caused by products sold in its stores, but as an effort to “help people living with cancer.” If Walgreens really wanted to help people, it would stop selling cigarettes today.

Cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable death, killing 7 million people worldwide and 480,000 in the United States every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, hypertension and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, to name a few of its deadly effects.

“Cigarette smoking increases risk for death from all causes in men and women,” the CDC says.

The devastating health effects of tobacco use have been known since the first Surgeon General’s report on smoking was issued fifty-five years ago. Nevertheless, Walgreens kept on selling cigarettes to successive generations of smokers.

In fact, outgoing U.S. Food and Drug Administration chief Scott Gottlieb singled out Walgreens as the “top violator among pharmacies that sell tobacco products” illegally to minors. An FDA investigation found that 22 percent of Walgreens 6,350 outlets inspected were selling cigarettes to underage purchasers. Gottlieb requested a meeting with company management “to discuss whether there is a corporate-wide issue related to their stores’ track record of violating the law by illegally selling tobacco products to kids.”

Walgreens readily agreed to the meeting, noting that “we have a zero tolerance policy prohibiting the sale of tobacco products to minors and any employee violating this policy is subject to immediate termination.”

All of this would be bad enough on its own, but it’s downright disgraceful coming from a company that’s trying to position its stores as “neighborhood health destinations,” as CEO Stefano Pessina put it. Walgreens is adding an array of health care services to its pharmacy offerings, including blood testing and on-site physicians.

It’s hard to imagine anything more detrimental to “neighborhood health” than cigarettes. Walgreens archrival CVS Health acknowledged as much when it stopped selling cigarettes in 2014.

"Put simply, the sale of tobacco products is inconsistent with our purpose,” CVS CEO Larry Merlo said at the time.

Yet Walgreens hasn’t followed suit, despite intensifying pressure and unfavorable attention to its role as a leading purveyor of tobacco. A year ago, the American Medical Association, American Cancer Society and American Lung Association wrote a letter urging Walgreens to stop selling cigarettes.

That appeal, like others, fell on deaf ears. The most Walgreens will offer is a statement from spokesman Philip Caruso that “we continue to consider this issue on a regular basis.”

What’s to consider? The evidence is in. Smoking kills. And selling cigarettes is fundamentally at odds with a goal of promoting good health. I don’t care how many nicotine patches and other smoking cessation products Walgreens offers—a store that sells cigarettes isn’t a “neighborhood health center.”

Which leaves us to ponder Walgreens’ reasons for clinging to cigarettes. Here’s an educated guess: kicking the habit would cost too much.

The company won’t say how much tobacco contributes to revenues and profit, but it must be more than Pessina & Co. are prepared to lose. Walgreens needs every dime it can get at a time when pharmacy profit margins are under pressure and sales of higher-margin “front-end” retail sales are sluggish. Pulling cigarettes out of the front-end mix would likely exacerbate Walgreens’ front-end woes.

Until the financial consequences of selling cigarettes begin to outweigh the costs of giving them up, Walgreens will likely continue to be the go-to source of smokes in many neighborhoods. And that’s a shame.