Give him a fedora and you'd swear he was Indiana Jones.
Jacek Olczak came on like the Raider of Last Puff recently as the Phillip Morris (PM) CEO lit into governments the world over to step up their efforts to end cigarette smoking.
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Speaking at the Unheard Club in London, Olczak declared that "cigarettes belong in museums," but current policies to reduce smoking prevalence are not working fast enough and may be prolonging smoking.
"Our mission is clear: to reduce smoking by replacing cigarettes with less harmful alternatives," he said.
Movie buffs may remember that Indiana Jones made a similar comment in the 1989 film "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" -- only he was talking about the Cross of Coronado and not a pack of smokes.
"Since 2016, my company has fully committed to moving away from cigarettes, the most harmful form of nicotine consumption," Olczak said.
Switching to Smoke-Free Alternatives
"We have invested more than $10.5 billion in developing and commercializing smoke-free products—which today account for nearly 35% of our total net revenues," he added.
He added that "our ability to make further progress is being blocked by those who are blindly guided by a desire to see an end to the industry rather than an end to cigarettes."
"This is very frustrating," Olczak said.
In November, Philip Morris acquired 93% of the nicotine pouch maker Swedish Match as the company looks for smoke-free growth prospects in global nicotine markets.
"It is no longer a case of if these smoke-free alternatives are better than cigarette smoking; it is a case of by how much," Olczak said.
Citing data from the World Health Organization, Olczak said that "we see the real potential for a tenfold reduction in smoking-attributable deaths if smokers fully switched to smoke-free products."
"And this positive impact could be even greater when combined with traditional measures to discourage initiation and encourage cessation," he added.
Olczak stressed that people who have never used tobacco or nicotine, especially minors, should not use these products.
"And there’s no doubt that quitting altogether, or better still, never starting, is the best choice," he said. "But, let’s focus for now on adult smokers who have not quit. Today, thanks to smoke-free products, these one billion people have better options than continuing to smoke."
Olczak said Sweden and Japan both have seen smoking rates go down as non-combustible products begin to replace cigarettes.
In contrast, he said, smoke-free products are banned in Singapore and cigarette sales volume has increased.
"Despite all this evidence, the policy of inaction continues in many places—preventing less harmful products from replacing the cigarette," he said.
Olczak called upon anti-tobacco organizations "to stop fighting against us and start fighting for adults who smoke."
Working Toward a Common Goal
"It’s time to work toward a common goal of delivering effective policies that make cigarettes a historical artifact, a museum piece collecting dust behind glass cases," he said.
Smokeless tobacco products might expose people to lower levels of harmful chemicals than tobacco smoke, but that doesn't mean these products are a safe alternative to smoking, according to the Mayo Clinic.
"Smokeless tobacco contains nicotine, which can lead to addiction, and dozens of chemicals that can cause cancer," the clinic said on its website. "Because of the health risks, smokeless tobacco products aren't a good alternative to quit smoking."
Earlier this year, U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Tobacco Products outlined steps it plans to take to further prevent the damage to public health that it says e-cigarettes pose to the young.
The Center said it was targeting e-cigarette companies whose products lack required FDA marketing authorization.
In a May 1 interview posted by Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Johana Cohen, director of the Institute for Global Tobacco Control, said “we’re hoping that the FDA can encourage the development and approval of more therapies to help people quit smoking.”
She said there are currently three different kinds of approved smoking cessation therapies—nicotine gum, patches, and some medicines—but no new treatment has been approved in the past 17 years.
"We are in an Alice-in-Wonderland topsy-turvy regulatory space right now," she said. "Cigarettes, which are the deadliest form of nicotine delivery, have been subject to limited oversight, whereas products that are marketed to help people quit smoking face far more substantial regulatory barriers."
Cohen called upon the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research "to consider how harmful cigarettes are and that we need more therapies that will be acceptable to consumers, so they have a broader reach and have greater impact."
