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Cigarettes are harmful.
The tobacco product causes cancer. Still, recent Centers for Disease Control research shows that underage tobacco use has been on the rise since 1993. Much of the problem has been availability. The Spartanburg County Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse recently sent teen-agers into 249 stores to attempt to purchase cigarettes, and while they were unsuccessful at most, they were able to make buys at 17.7 percent of the stores. That's too many vendors still breaking the law.