The largest US drug-store chain by sales, Walgreen Co., is seeking an emergency injunction to stop the city from banning the sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products at pharmacies. A hearing on Walgreen’s motion will be held September 30. The ban is expected to take effect October 1 if Walgreen’s motion won’t be successful and would affect 52 Walgreen pharmacies in San Francisco.

The measure was approved in July by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and signed by Mayor Gavin Newsom last month, making the city the first in the nation to ban tobacco sales in pharmacies. The ban was modeled on similar bans in eight Canadian provinces and was supported by the California Medical Association and the American Cancer Society. At the time, San Francisco Supervisors claimed that sick people shouldn’t be faced with cancer-causing products while getting their prescriptions filled. Today the organization is scheduled to vote on another piece of anti-smoking legislation that would restrict smoking in a wide array of public places.

According to the San Francisco’s law, prohibits "any retail establishment in which the profession of pharmacy is practiced” is forbidden to sell tobacco products, “unless the retail establishment is a general grocery store or a big-box store.”

This specific detail bothered Walgreens’ officials. Representative Tiffani Bruce wanted to explain the chain’s position: “Our position is based solely on being fair across different types of retailers. Our pharmacists are trained to counsel smokers on smoking cessation products and how to go about kicking their habit. This ordinance will discourage smokers from coming to a place where they can have this type of access,” he said as quoted by the San Francisco Chronicle.

Moreover, Walgreens’ attorneys called the ordinance “anti-competitive” and “unconstitutional” because it “prohibits tobacco products sales at some pharmacies, but not others, favoring some retail establishments that have pharmacies but not others.”

The ban is just one of the measures taken by authorities across the US against smoking, but, although the number of those who smoke seems to lower, smoking is still the biggest cause of preventable deaths in the US, killing more than 400,000 people each year.

Smoking causes nine out of 10 cases of lung cancer, the leading cause of cancer death in men worldwide and the second-leading cause of cancer death among women. Of course, there are also other conditions favored by smoking such as heart disease, asthma and child birth defects in case of women who smoke during pregnancy.

Also, secondhand smoking seems to be higher than previously believed, killing almost 40,000 people annually because of cancers, respiratory infections and asthma, conditions also diagnosed in the case of smokers.

At a global level, the World Health Organization estimates that every year more than 1.4 million people die from lung cancer, which is the leading cause of cancer death.