The COO said the company would eventually quit nicotine, as well
By NACS Online // May 24, 2019
Philip Morris International has a vision for the future, and it doesn’t include cigarettes, FOX Businessreports. COO Jacek Olczak told FOX’s Stuart Varney that the company will “absolutely 100%” going smokeless.
“We can un-smoke consumers—we can un-smoke Philip Morris,” Olczak said. The company already has been working on alternatives to cigarettes, including a heat-not-burn IQOS product, which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently approved for salein the United States.
“The way we see it, we will be moving Philip Morris out of combustion,” he said. “And based on scientific capability to one-day move Philip Morris beyond nicotine.”
When asked the timeline for such a move away from cigarettes and other smoked tobacco products, Olczak said, “I wish we will achieve it before I retire. So, I still have a few years to go. … Now that we’re gearing up where I’m located most of the resources, there are a full alignment of all our employees, our board staffing. We have a right wing into our sales to achieve something that, you know, 15 or so years ago would be just a dream.”
Tobacco products have increasingly come under scrutiny lately, as more states have raised the tobacco-buying age to 21, and Congressis considering a bill to make 21 the federal minimum tobacco purchase age.
