But does Philip Morris really want to say goodbye to smoking? The company’s e-cigarettes and other smoke-free products should enable the transition. But they still contain nicotine. The addiction therefore does not disappear. And the company is now investing heavily in nicotine-containing alternatives. According to Bloomberg news agency, Philip Morris now derives a quarter of its nearly 24 billion euros turnover from smoke-free products, such as e-cigarettes. That should be half by 2025.
According to the tobacco giant’s site, e-cigarettes and other alternatives are intended for smokers who would otherwise continue to smoke regular cigarettes. In practice, vapes – available in sweet fruit flavors among other things – are particularly popular among young people. Altria, parent company of Philip Morris USA, has had a 35 percent stake in e-cigarette maker JUUL since 2018.
In early July, Philip Morris bought Vectura for more than 1.2 billion euros, which makes inhalers and medicines for people with lung problems, which are often caused by smoking. Researcher Marc Willemsen of the Trimbos Institute is surprised. “They are going to relieve the suffering of people they themselves have made sick. And meanwhile they continue to produce nicotine products.’
Non smoking
Willemsen, professor by special appointment of tobacco control, points to the ‘smoke-free’ IQOS products that Philip Morris makes. “It just contains tobacco.” Because the tobacco is not burned with the futuristic-looking plastic pipes, but only heated strongly, the company can speak of ‘smoke-free’.
Smoke-free products could solve the smoking problem in some countries forever within a decade, Philip Morris executives say. With that approach, the company placed a full-page advertisement in The Telegraph. The Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority has now started an investigation into this Philip Morris campaign.
‘They can also just stop selling cigarettes. But the reality is that they still earn a lot from this all over the world’, says Willemsen. ‘Research also shows that people are switching from e-cigarettes back to regular cigarettes. After all, they remain addicted.’ Willemsen finds the appeal in the British newspaper ‘a bit gratuitous’. ‘England has relatively few smokers, which is already a sharply declining market. They hope to gain market share there with alternative products.’
According to him, the British government will not come up with a ban anytime soon. ‘Nowhere in the world has that been successful, so they can easily say that. They want to help determine policy, but the WHO does not allow that. So they try to play it through the media.’
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