CVS: One Year After Eliminating Tobacco
Sales

On September 3, 2014, CVS stopped selling tobacco products in their stores.

It's been exactly one year since one of the nation's largest health care retailers announced that they would no longer cater to their customer's addiction to nicotine. When CVS first announced the decision, critics and analysts projected that the drug store chain would face some heavy losses as people went elsewhere for their cigarettes and nicotine products. One year later though, the chain is thriving and expanding into new markets.

While it seemed like a risky business move, health care advocates applauded the move, citing CVS' responsibility and statement that it didn't make sense for them to sell the products in a store focused on improving customer's health. One year later, the move seems to be paying off. According to Forbes, the company hasn't suffered any loss of sales when researching their public records and reports. If anything, the move may be helping the company as it essentially re-brands itself and expands to focus on health-related retail and services.

Why companies discouraging smoking could be a big deal to young adults.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 44 million Americans were smoking in 2014. While smoking among young adults and teens has somewhat decreased over the past few years, it is unfortunately still a prevalent drug of choice for younger generations. With a company like CVS no longer selling the products, not only does it make it slightly harder to obtain cigarettes, e-cigarettes, and nicotine products, it also takes a big hit at tobacco culture.