Marlboro Man boss calls for smoking ban amid switch to vaping
Marlboro Man boss calls for date to be set for full smoking ban amid move to vaping and heated tobacco
The boss of the tobacco giant behind the iconic Marlboro Man said a date should be set to ban cigarettes.
Jacek Olczak, CEO of Philip Morris International (PMI), has made it his mission to make old-fashioned gas presses a thing of the past – and he says cigarettes should be replaced by alternatives such as vaping.
Since 2016, the company, best known for brands like Marlboro and Benson & Hedges, has been trying to transform itself from the world’s largest tobacco company into a science center that can help smokers quit for good.
It has invested more than £8.5bn in this ‘smoke-free future’ – from research papers to new product promotion.
Olczak believes that a cigarette movement similar to the internal combustion engine needs to happen on a timeline that gives consumers and industry time to react and change.
Spit it out: Philip Morris International, whose Marlboro brand was advertised by the Marlboro Man (pictured), has invested more than £8.5bn in a ‘smoke-free future’
“Looking at what the UK is doing in the car industry, saying you can’t produce petrol cars from a certain year, we could have this with tobacco as well,” he told the Mail.
Olczak himself smoked for 20 years until he tried out the brand’s IQOS heated tobacco device, which costs £39 for a starter pack.
Products such as heated tobacco and e-vapes now account for nearly 35 percent of total annual sales at PMI.
And the Polish businessman, who wants the company to become a so-called “ESG” stock eligible to be included in funds that invest based on environmental, social and governance principles, said government intervention would help accelerate the transition .
New petrol and diesel cars and vans will be banned in the UK from 2030, forcing manufacturers to produce green alternatives and pressuring motorists to go green.
Olczak, 58, also drew an analogy with the switch to CFLs. “In different countries they had some investment programs to promote research and development to see if you can produce light with much less energy,” he said.
The main thrust of Olczak’s argument is that governments could reduce smoking and costs for health services if they supported tobacco companies like PMI in exploring less harmful alternatives to health – while setting a deadline for banning traditional cigarettes.
Quitting Habit: Jacek Olczak, Philip Morris’ boss, was a smoker himself for 20 years
According to the World Health Organization, the number of deaths from smoking could increase tenfold if smokers completely switched to smoke-free products.
In the past, PMI — whose brand was advertised by the Marlboro Man from the 1950s to the late 1990s — has fought lawsuits claiming it hid the dangers of smoking.
But Olczak, who became CEO in 2021 after decades at PMI, said the company has fundamentally changed — so much so that cigarettes now “belong in museums,” he says.
Speaking at a recent event in London, Olczak said: “If governments – and organizations that lobby them – prevent men and women who continue to smoke from accessing less harmful alternatives, and if they continue to spread misinformation about these products, it will have a direct impact. associated with the persistence of smoking.
“It’s time anti-tobacco organizations stop fighting us and start fighting for adults who smoke.”
He praised Sweden and Japan for their approach to smoking alternatives, in contrast to Brazil and Singapore, which have banned certain less harmful options.
PMI’s cigarette sales are still strong in the Middle East, Africa, Southeast Asia and the Americas.