Cigarettes are the single most stolen item from grocery and convenience stores.
According to the 1997 Food Market Institute Security and Loss Prevention Report, cigarettes accounted for 41 percent of all theft from such stores. A 1997 Iowa attorney general report confirmed the issue of rampant cigarette theft. Georgia has approximately 18,000 stores that sell tobacco products. 89 percent of adults who smoke today started before they turned 18, but the legal age to purchase tobacco is 18. In other words, without getting tobacco into the hands of those who are too young to legally purchase tobacco, the industry may not be able to survive.