Philip Morris, the company that produces popular cigarette brand Marlboro itself asked the UK government to ban cigarettes in a decade

Philip Morris International, the company behind popular cigarette brand Marlboro, has called the UK government to ban cigarettes within a decade. 

The company’s CEO Jacek Olczak said that the company could “see the world without cigarettes, and the sooner it happens, the better it is for everyone,” reports The Telegraph. 

“If you take the current usage or awareness of alternatives and remove this confusion, quite a lot of people actually, still think that alternatives are worse than cigarette,” Marlboro CEO said, adding that this also gives people a choice of smoke-free alternatives.

“With the right regulation and information, it can happen 10 years from now in some countries and the problem can be solved once and forever,” he added. 

Also read - Philip Morris looks beyond cigarettes with alternative products

Philip Morris’s Chairman André Calantzopoulos also joined him and praised the UK’s “more progressive” approach to vapes and other products designed to help people quit smoking. “Ban could be one solution, but this is not enough,” he said. 

Both of them said that cigarettes should be treated like petrol cars, the sale of which is due to be banned from 2030. 

This is not the first time Philip Morris came up with such “anti-tobacco” requests. 

Earlier in the year 2018, the company was accused of staging “a disgraceful PR stunt” by offering to help National Health Service (NHS) staff quit smoking to help mark the service’s 70th birthday, according to a Guardian report published on July 19, 2018. 

As it turned out, the stunt was mainly a commercial opportunity to use the NHS to promote Philip Morris’s new heated tobacco products, Bob Blackman, the Conservative MP who chairs the all-party group on smoking and health made such remarks. 

Steve Brine, the public health minister told the Guardian, ““Our aim to make our NHS – and our next generation – smoke-free must be completely separate from the commercial and vested interests of the tobacco industry,” 

“Philip Morris International will be well aware that its actions are entirely inappropriate and we will be contacting all NHS trusts to remind them of their obligations,” he added. 

Meanwhile, under the World Health Organisation’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) signatory countries’ governments must ensure that tobacco manufacturers play no role in public health since their products kill so many people. Britain is a signatory on FCTC.

“Parties should not accept, support or endorse partnerships and non-binding or non-enforceable agreements as well as any voluntary arrangement with the tobacco industry or any entity or person working to further its interests,” the framework’s accompanying guidance says. 

Also read - Is vaping a safer choice?

Earlier in November 2014, Marlboro released its “HeatSticks” product in Milan, Italy following another launch in Nagoya, Japan earlier that same month, according to a Reuters report. 

Marlboro’s HeatSticks are small tubes of tobacco that give the sensation of smoking by heating the tobacco instead of burning them. 

Such devices are meant to be less harmful than traditional cigarettes but more satisfying for smokers than modern e-cigarettes, which vaporize liquid that contains nicotine.

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