Locally-owned DrugCo has no foreseeable plans to discontinue tobacco products in light of news this week CVS was scrapping them from its shelves.

“It's a personal choice,” said DrugCo owner Gene Minton, who is not a tobacco user, this morning. “It's more intrusion into people's lives. I wonder if they're going to stop selling alcohol and beer.”

Minton said many of his customers are tobacco farmers and the plant remains a cash crop in North Carolina. “If you have a business starting to choose for you, what's next? How much can we regulate?”

Minton doesn't encourage smoking or tobacco use, but said businesses shouldn't decide what's best for their customers. “People have a right to make their own choices. I'm not going to make them for them.”

CVS, the country's largest drugstore chain, announced Wednesday it planned to stop selling cigarettes and other tobacco products by October, according to multiple published reports.

"Ending the sale of cigarettes and tobacco products at CVS/pharmacy is the right thing for us to do for our customers and our company to help people on their path to better health," said Larry J. Merlo, president and CEO of CVS Caremark in a statement. "Put simply, the sale of tobacco products is inconsistent with our purpose.”

The New York Times reported the company estimated that its decision would shave an estimated $2 billion in sales from customers buying cigarettes and other products, including incidental items like gum that those shoppers might also purchase. That is a mere dent in its overall sales of $123 billion in 2012, the latest figures available, The Times reported.

The Chicago Tribune reported that despite its more recent transformation into a more health care-focused company, Walgreen has remained steadfast in its tobacco policy, arguing last year that it must continue to sell those products to stay competitive with other drug store chains, convenience stores and grocery stores.

Michael Polzin, a Walgreen spokesman, told the Tribune Wednesday the company has been evaluating its tobacco line for “some time,” and said it “will continue to evaluate the choice of products our customers want, while also helping to educate them and providing smoking cessation products and alternatives that help reduce the demand for tobacco products.”

Walgreen on Wednesday also announced a partnership with GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare to launch a free, Internet-based smoking cessation program called Sponsorship to Quit, the Tribune reported.