The major US drugstore chain, CVS Caremark, who have more than 7,100 stores nationwide, announced on Wednesday that all of their outlets will cease selling cigarettes and tobacco products as of October 1, 2014.

The nation’s second-largest drugstore chain said today, that even though tobacco sales bring in between 1.5 billion and $2 billion in annual revenue, that they want to focus more on its role as a healthcare provider. Currently the chain has more than $56 billion in annual sales.

“We’ve come to the conclusion that cigarettes have no place in a setting where health care is being delivered,” said CVS CEO Larry Merlo.

Wednesday’s announcement came after CVS officials met with tobacco company executives yesterday to explain their decision to discontinue tobacco sales. CVS felt that the meetings with the tobacco industry were necessary as the CVS decision to quit selling tobacco products would affect the industry’s bottom line as well.

President Obama, a former smoker himself, said the drugstore’s decision to and tobacco sales “sets a powerful example” and will have a “profoundly positive impact on the health of our country.”

It is expected that other nationwide drugstores will follow the CVS lead and discontinue tobacco sales at their outlets as well in the near future.

The CVS announcement comes on the 50th anniversary of Surgeon General Luther Terry’s report that linked cigarette smoking to lung cancer and heart disease in 1964.

Although smoking rates in the United States is lower than in other countries, still nearly 44,000,000 US adults, or about 1/5 of the adult population smoke cigarettes. Cigarette smoking accounts for more than 440,000 deaths annually in the United States.