Tobacco firm says new product will reduce smoking rate, critics skeptical of motives
TORONTO — One of the world’s largest tobacco companies is rolling out a smokeless cigarette in Canada that it contends is less harmful than conventional combustible products, but some critics call the device merely a ploy to maintain — or even increase — market share in the face of dwindling smoking rates.
Philip Morris International has developed a heat-not-burn product called IQOS, or I-Quit-Ordinary-Smoking, that the tobacco giant says retains a high level of nicotine while reducing carcinogenic components found in the smoke of regular cigarettes.
PMI, along with its Canadian subsidiary Rothmans Benson & Hedges, says it is committed to a smoke-free future — one that eliminates the burning of cigarettes and helps Canada reach its goal of reducing the smoking rate to less than five per cent by 2035.
“Basically if you eliminate the combustion and the smoke in a product that is still satisfying to adult smokers, that’s where we’ll probably see a true impact of reduction on public health,” PMI medical adviser Mikael Franzon said after travelling to Toronto this week from the U.S.