Tobacco company targets "smoke-free world"
Saturday, July 9, 2016 at 9:30 Spotted on the Philip Morris International website:
We are currently seeking a highly-qualified econometrician to join our international Corporate Affairs Research and Strategy team in Lausanne, Switzerland.
As part of our efforts to advance a smoke-free world [my emphasis], we are looking for a candidate to help us better understand, quantify, and model the impact of various fiscal and regulatory policies on adult smoker conversion to RRPs [Reduced Risk Products] as well as develop relevant socio-economic impact models.
The successful candidate will work closely with colleagues in Corporate Affairs and Research & Development ...
Words fail me. Almost.
Last year I concluded a short speech at the Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum in Bologna by saying:
The bottom line is, most consumers want choice and the freedom to choose between a wide range range of tobacco and non-tobacco vapour products.
It's up to industry and regulators to accept and meet that demand and put the consumer first. So my message to the tobacco industry, as it's been every year I've attended GTNF, is this:
Embrace harm reduction, embrace e-cigarettes, embrace other new technologies including heat not burn and others that have yet to be invented, but don't forget who your core customer is.
There are enough groups trying to marginalise and stigmatise smokers. The last thing they need is the tobacco industry turning its back on the millions of adult consumers who enjoy smoking and don't want to quit.
For the record, Forest last received a donation from Philip Morris in 1997. Call me psychic but I don't think we'll be getting another one any time soon!
PS. Just read the job details in full. Under 'PMI is an Equal Opportunities Employer' it says:
PMI is also committed to sustainability across our entire business ... Our commitment to sustainability is not complete without first reflecting, and acknowledging, the societal harm caused by our products. This is why we are leading a full scale effort to ensure that cigarettes are ultimately replaced in society [my emphasis]. For more information, please visit www.pmi.com.
Funnily enough I've been a minor cheerleader for heat not burn technology, including PMI's Iqos system, on the basis that it appears to offer a halfway house between combustible and electronic cigarettes while staying faithful to consumers who want to consume tobacco.
I would happily encourage people to switch from combustible to heat not burn or electronic cigarettes if that's their choice, and I likewise support every attempt to develop less harmful nicotine delivery devices that satisfy existing smokers.
What concerns me is the language. A "full scale effort to ensure that cigarettes are ultimately replaced in society" is the sort of target you expect public health fanatics to set.
If the aim is to put every effort into developing a range of non-combustible products that smokers enjoy as much as cigarettes, allowing them to switch with equanimity, fine.
For smokers however a "full scale effort to ensure that cigarettes are ultimately replaced in society" conjures up a more illiberal scenario involving coercion, restrictions and further heavy-handed regulations designed to force consumers to switch or quit cigarettes completely.
I appreciate the fine line a company like PMI is treading because I'm sure the goal is not to prohibit smoking but to encourage and manage an orderly transition from combustible cigarettes to non-combustible products without losing too many customers en route.
The problem is, if they come across as 'anti-smoking' and are unwilling to support adults who continue to smoke (because they enjoy it), the long-term impact on consumer relations is anyone's guess.
At risk of repeating myself, the key issue is choice. Whatever the health risks, smoking tobacco is a perfectly legitimate thing to do.
If PMI's goal is a "smoke free world" in which cigarettes have been completely replaced by non-combustible products that's their prerogative, but it won't happen in my lifetime nor, I imagine, in my children's lifetime.
In the meantime what does it say about PMI's commitment to freedom of choice and the rights of millions of consumers who smoke their products that they are actively endorsing a "smoke free world"?
As someone commented on Forest's Facebook page, it's like a big brewer pursuing an alcohol free world.
Good luck with that!
Reader Comments (13)
low risk BS. risk is a belief system but never proven~!
So whoever thought tobacco companies would care about the choices of their consumers.
Stuff their hnb and stuff the stupid vape sticks. I wish people would just leave us alone.
Meanwhile pm can get stuffed. I won't buy their products anymore.
In the USA, back in the 1980s and 1990s, many top tobacco company execs followed the company line in court but privately believed some of the propaganda. The anti-smoking industry got hold of some internal company memos that revealed this. Potentially leaving the execs open to perjury charges. The "Master Settlement Agreement" (MSA) of 1998 gave them a way out of this provided they sold out both their companies and their consumers. This they did and they've followed the anti-smoking line faithfully, perhaps to varying degrees, ever since. NB the MSA only applies to companies doing business in the USA, particularly if they're based there.
How very disappointing. Most of us always knew that the Tobacco Companies were no friends of ours, as their complete and utter lack of any kind of objections to any of the unfair anti-smoking legislations has proven time and again. For sure, I can understand their desire to explore other avenues for business, as their main one – cigarettes – is under such heavy fire at the moment. That’s just good business sense. But to support it with the same Utopian-style wordings as we have usually come to expect from the depths of the Tobacco Control industry just goes to show how little respect they have for their customers or, perhaps, how infiltrated by anti-smokers they have allowed themselves to become.
Stuff ‘em. I’ve smoked one of their brands for many years now and never felt inclined to switch, because I like them. Perhaps now I’ll start trying the brands of some of the other big tobacco companies and if I find one I like, I’ll stick with that instead.
Actually, that's unfair, Misty. The tobacco companies, including PMI, have fought most anti-smoking laws in a variety of ways including lobbying, submissions to government and even, in some cases, legal action.
Forest receives donations from Imperial, JTI and BAT so it would be wrong, I think, to criticise those companies for not supporting the consumer although smokers could always benefit from a bit more help.
Simon being on the inside like yourself you may well be aware of such actions from tobacco companies, the average smoker hasn't the slightest clue of "ANY" action being taken by anyone regarding the smoking ban.
I think Philip Morris on their website shows clearly what they think of smoking along with the silence from tobacco companies over the years and the lack of any real protests from the smoking public, lets face it several thousand protesters could turn up at an hours notice by means of social media as happened with London/Remainers last week if they care about the issues.
I think you are lucky you to get donations from the other tobacco companies, I wonder is that an automatic contribution or does someone actually sign a cheque every year?
Well so much for the "Big Tobacco" myth. It's more like "Big Capital" seeking profit at any expense. The real myths which need to be discounted are the myth of second hand smoke and then the exaggerated risks of smoking themselves.
Dioclese: "I think you are lucky to get donations ..."
Luck doesn't come into it. We work extremely hard to warrant the donations we receive and I like to think the companies that donate funds to Forest appreciate the passion, commitment and expertise we offer.
As for "automatic contribution", that's not how the private sector works. However big the company, budgets are tight and any donation has to be justified on an annual basis. We don't take any donation for granted. It has to be earned.
@Dioclese
You fail to take into account the decades of remorseless propaganda that the politicians and public have been fed. We are now in a situation where anyone who disagrees with the PC narrative on smoking is howled down and dismissed as a 'Tobacco shill', 'a hopeless addict', 'disgustingly antisocial' and worse.
I seem to recall you yourself employing similar terms, being a fully paid up anti-smoker. (If I'm confusing you with someone else, my apologies, but I do seem to remember reading several anti-smoking rants from you.)
In such circumstances, it is very difficult to mount a credible defence, because the masses have been comprehensively brainwashed into believing all the garbage vomited up by Tobacco Control and their cronies.
It's similar to the 'global warming' scam, but has been going on for a lot longer with a much higher level of indoctrination. The tobacco companies doubtless seek to rehabilitate themselves in this oh so PC world we inhabit today, and so are making all the correct noises. A bit like politicians joining gay pride marches to show how right-on and PC they are.
As for the public reaction to the smoking ban, they have been subject to a salami-slice approach, which the Nazi hierarchy knew very well was how best to remove people's freedoms. And don't quote Godwin's Law at me either. There are so many parallels between the methods employed by Tobacco Control and the Third Reich that it's impossible not to make the comparison.
Yes of course the Nazis blueprint is something I overlooked, the Dartford power station isnt what it seems either, a good place for disposal of smokers bodies.
I don't know what to make of the Brexit vote, surely after years of elites controlling freedoms like Nazis as freedomongers have tried to convince us for years in blogland , 17 million voters ignored experts.mainstream political parties and did their own thing.
I thought the Nazi blueprint conspiracy had got this EU sorted.
OK, that's enough Nazi references. Not relevant to this post.
As the last Philip Morris donor to Forest, I feel quite nostalgic!
I understand the last donation was in 1997 - before my time, sadly!