title: Twitter users' reaction to a chain pharmacy's decision to end tobacco sales.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Reducing the number of tobacco outlets may help reduce smoking uptake and use; public support for such action is essential. We explored how Twitter users responded to the announcement by US pharmacy chain CVS that it was voluntarily ending tobacco sales.
  
  
  METHODS
  We used Twitter's application programming interface to retrieve tweets and retweets posted over an 8-day period in February 2014 that contained two trending CVS-related hashtags (#cvs and #cvsquits). We manually coded 6,257 tweets as positive, negative, or neutral.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The majority of tweets were positive (56.0 %) or neutral (39.4 %).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There was little disapproval of CVS's decision to end tobacco sales among Twitter users, possibly due to the voluntary nature of the decision. The level of support suggests that CVS's image and bottom line will not suffer as a result. Further voluntary actions to end tobacco sales - which may lay the groundwork for legislation -- should be incentivized and supported.
authors.affiliation: Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, School of Nursing, University of California, San Francisco, 3333 California Street, Ste. 455, San Francisco, CA 94118 USA.
authors.forename: Patricia A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: McDaniel
authors.affiliation: Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, School of Nursing, University of California, San Francisco, 3333 California Street, Ste. 455, San Francisco, CA 94118 USA.
authors.forename: Hannah
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Patzke
authors.affiliation: Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, School of Nursing, University of California, San Francisco, 3333 California Street, Ste. 455, San Francisco, CA 94118 USA.
authors.forename: Ruth E
authors.initials: RE
authors.lastname: Malone