“Incredulous” may best describe reactions from anti-smoking groups to an advertising campaign launched this week by tobacco giant Philip Morris International (PMI) vowing to stop selling cigarettes.
The full page ads, which first ran Tuesday in several British newspapers, included the tag line “Our New Year’s Resolution, We’re Trying to Give Up Cigarettes.”
“Philip Morris is known for cigarettes. Every year, many smokers give them up. Now it’s our turn,” the copy read, adding that, “Our ambition is to stop selling cigarettes in the UK. It won’t be easy.”
American Lung Association (ALA) president and CEO Harold P. Wimmer issued a terse response in a statement issued Thursday: “Stop selling cigarettes today.”
“This is another PR stunt from a company that has used countless PR stunts to addict and kill millions of people over the last 60 years,” ALA assistant vice president of national advocacy Erika Sward told MedPage Today.
“We have no reason to believe that they have turned over a new leaf in 2018. The bottom line is they can put their money where their mouth is and stop selling cigarettes today.”
In response to MedPage Today‘s request for comment, a spokesperson for PMI noted that the U.K. initiative “demonstrates the global commitment of our company to have cigarettes replaced by science-based, smoke-free alternatives as quickly as possible, to the benefit of smokers, public health and society at large.”
“Providing less harmful alternatives to smokers who would otherwise not quit is a common-sense approach to public health, embraced by a growing number of experts and health authorities worldwide,” the statement read.
“Today, science and technology allow us to provide smokers with better alternatives to cigarettes. Smoke-free products like e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products do not generate the vast majority of chemicals found in cigarette smoke, and therefore have clear potential to be less harmful options for the millions of men and women who would otherwise continue smoking.”
The anti-tobacco groups Truth Initiative and Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids were highly critical of the launch early last year by PMI of a website touting the company’s commitment to a “smoke-free future.”
“As long as Philip Morris continues to do everything it can to fight proven policies and programs that reduce smoking and continues to aggressively market cigarettes around the world, often in ways that appeal to children, their claims do not deserve to be taken seriously,” a joint statement from the groups read.
In an email exchange with MedPage Today, Truth Initiative CEO and President Robin Koval agreed that if the tobacco giant was serious about its stated goal to abandon combustible cigarettes, “they would stop selling cigarettes immediately.”
Philip Morris reports spending billions of dollars developing nicotine delivery products designed to give smokers what it calls safer alternatives to traditional combustible cigarettes.
The company’s heat-not-burn, heat stick product IQOS has been wildly popular in Japan since its launch in late 2014, and the product is now sold in limited markets in more than two dozen countries. It’s currently under consideration by the FDA for U.S. marketing.
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