Tobacco giant Philip Morris, popularly known for for producing Marlboro, has urged the United Kingdom and other countries to ban cigarette smoking within the next decade.
Jacek Olczak, chief executive of Philip Morris, told Daily Mail?that the company could ¡°see the world without cigarettes ¡ and actually, the sooner it happens, the better it is for everyone.¡±
He said that the company plans to stop selling Marlboro cigarettes in Britain within a decade, in line with the country's wider ambition to stamp out smoking by 2030.
"I think in the UK, ten years from now maximum, you can completely solve the problem of smoking," he said, adding that it would require the help of governments and regulators.??
Tobacco companies have in recent years focused on new products such as e-cigarettes in advanced economies, while tobacco was still being targeted to young adults in developing countries, he said.??
The move is seen as part of company's new strategy to reinvent itself as it looks to step up its ambitious plan to generate 50 per cent of net revenue from non-smoking products by 2025 - including $1 billion from its Beyond Nicotine respiratory drug delivery and wellness range, The National reported.?
Taking its first steps in that direction, the company earlier this month?launched a 1.05 billion pound bid for British asthma drug-maker Vectura.?
The deal, though, has received?backlash?from anti-tobacco groups and has spurred a reaction from the World Health Organization, which called such healthcare partnerships by Big Tobacco as undermining its progress on controlling its "deadly products."?