Philip
Morris CEO looks towards phasing out cigarettes: BBC
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[November 30, 2016]
LONDON (Reuters) - Philip Morris
International, the world's largest international tobacco company, could
eventually stop selling cigarettes, its chief executive told the BBC on
Wednesday, as it launched its alternative product IQOS in Britain.
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The company's IQOS smokeless cigarette, which is already on sale in
over a dozen markets including Japan, Switzerland and Italy, heats
tobacco enough to produce a vapor without burning it. The company
believes that makes it much less harmful than cigarettes.
Japan Tobacco International <2914.T> also has a tobacco-based
cigarette alternative called Ploom Tech, and British American
Tobacco <BATS.L> said this month that it was also testing one.
"I believe there will come a moment in time where I would say we
have sufficient adoption of these alternative products ... to start
envisaging, together with governments, a phase-out period for
cigarettes," Andre Calantzopoulos said in an interview on BBC Radio
4.
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"I hope this time will come soon," he added.
Philip Morris, the maker of Marlboro cigarettes everywhere except
the United States, gets the vast majority of its sales and profits
from traditional cigarettes, which kill an estimated 6 million
people a year worldwide.
Even though the tobacco market is shrinking as more people quit,
Calantzopoulos said that by 2025 there will still be more than a
billion smokers worldwide.
Still, the company has invested over $2 billion into potentially
"reduced risk" products that deliver the addictive nicotine without
the deadly smoke.
Calantzopoulos said the economics of these products was similar to
cigarettes.
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The IQOS is an electronic device that is used with mini cigarettes.
It is different from e-cigarettes, which use a nicotine-laced
liquid.
"If smokers switch to electronic cigarettes or other products that
can be shown to cut the risks to their health, this could lead to a
big improvement in public health," said Deborah Arnott, chief
executive of UK health charity Action on Smoking and Health. "But we
need independent evidence to support any claims made by the tobacco
industry."
ASH said that until independent evidence shows that IQOS and similar
products are substantially less harmful than smoking, they should be
regulated in the same way as cigarettes.
(Reporting by Martinne Geller in London; Editing by Greg Mahlich and
Susan Fenton)
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