Philip Morris CEO Talks About Cigarette-Free Future

Tobacco giant Philip Morris International has said it wants to phase out cigarettes as soon as possible. Philip Morris CEO Andre Calantzopoulos talked to Stephen Sackur from BBC about smoke free future and discussed the company’s transformation.

“Cigarette sales are declining everywhere in the world and we are going to accelerate this decline,” chief executive Andre Calantzopoulos told BBC Hardtalk’s Stephen Sackur.

Mr Calantzopoulos said his objective is to focus on their new, alternative products and get rid of cigarettes, and they can achieve this very quickly if governments and regulators help with this.

Four key highlights from Calantzopoulos:

• “We are totally focused on the new products and we want to phase out cigarettes. And if governments and regulators play the game, we can get there very fast”
• “I’m doing everything we can as a company” to focus on better products for adult smokers that otherwise do not quit. We can phase out cigarettes very fast with the right regulations.
• “Cigarette sales are declining everywhere in the world and we are going to accelerate this decline”
• “If we stop selling cigarettes tomorrow, this won’t move an iota the needle on public health. On the contrary. We will have an illicit industry selling them. My objective here is to phase them out. We are doing everything we can as a company. We are totally focused on the new products, the alternatives, and we want to phase out cigarettes. And if governments and regulators play the game, we can get there very fast”

Here is the full interview: