{"id":24381,"date":"2020-05-06T06:58:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-06T06:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=24381"},"modified":"2020-05-06T06:58:00","modified_gmt":"2020-05-06T06:58:00","slug":"philip-morris-internationalpmi-using-same-tactics-to-profit-from-death-and-addiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=24381","title":{"rendered":"PHILIP MORRIS INTERNATIONAL(PMI): Using Same Tactics to Profit From Death and Addiction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/alternativeadvert.com\/show.php?z=30&amp;pl=19271&amp;ad_type=81&amp;rl=1800\" width=\"336\" height=\"280\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Amid a global health crisis, Philip Morris International (PMI) will virtually gather shareholders on Wednesday, May 6, 2020, to applaud the corporation\u2019s continued efforts to rebrand itself as \u2018smoke-free.\u2019 PMI\u2019s annual meeting was preempted by tobacco control advocates Tuesday, who exposed that while PMI would have the world believe it is changing, it\u2019s still using the same tactics to profit from death and addiction.<\/p>\n<p>PMI, one of the world\u2019s largest publicly traded tobacco corporations, has spent the last three years and billions of dollars on a public relations campaign for its new identity as \u2018smoke-free.\u2019 The campaign, which goes far beyond typical corporate PR, includes bankrolling the\u00a0Foundation for a Smoke-Free World\u00a0and launching a\u00a0life insurance company<span lang=\"DE\">\u00a0under PMI<\/span>\u2019s corporate umbrella. The rebranding effort has largely been\u00a0dismissed as a ploy\u00a0to sell PMI\u2019s newest tobacco product, iQOS, and to insert itself into public health policy making.<\/p>\n<p><b><span lang=\"IT\">Dr. Adriana Blanco<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<b><span lang=\"PT\">Marquizo<\/span><\/b>,\u00a0<b>Head of the Secretariat of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control,\u00a0<\/b>has said:\u00a0\u201cWe have a common enemy that spends tireless efforts to undermine our work. The tobacco industry makes vast profits from making people dependent to nicotine, selling it in different forms\u2014and they do not want anything to change.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In Tuesday\u2019s press conference, public health experts from Latin America, Western Africa, and Southeast Asia discussed that, based on PMI\u2019s own figures, cigarettes are still the corporation\u2019s core product. In fact, while PMI claims to be \u2018un-smoking\u2019 itself, it has produced\u00a0almost 59,000<span lang=\"DA\">\u00a0cigarettes for\u00a0<\/span>every dollar spent funding FSFW.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPMI has known about the harm of and addiction to cigarettes since the 1960s,\u201d\u00a0<b><span lang=\"PT\">Adriana Carvalho, Legal Director at<\/span><\/b><b>\u00a0<\/b><b>ACT Health Promotion Brazil<\/b>\u00a0said.\u00a0\u201cFacing the first scientific evidence, PMI marketed low-tar cigarettes and falsely promoted them as reduced-risk products. Then PMI promoted flavored cigarettes to attract children. Now, it is iQOS, with flavorings and technological appeal to target the youth. PMI is following its historic logic of profit at the expense of health.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>PMI has marketed iQOS as the company\u2019s path to \u2018un-smoke\u2019 the world. But iQOS is\u00a0primarily marketed\u00a0in wealthier countries and\/or where cigarette sales were already in decline, suggesting the iQOS brand is about recapturing lost tobacco users, not curbing the epidemic.\u00a0As one of PMI\u2019s iQOS salesmen in New Zealand put it,\u00a0\u201cit\u2019s not designed to help stop people from smoking. It\u2019s designed to be a replacement.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPhilip Morris\u2019 claims of corporate transformation are misleading, hypocritical, and dangerous. If PMI was genuinely concerned about public health, it would implement a global product recall of cigarettes,\u201d said\u00a0<b>Dr. Ulysses Dorotheo, Executive Director<\/b>\u00a0<b>of the\u00a0<\/b><b>Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance<\/b>.\u00a0\u201cBut apparently, countless more smokers dying doesn\u2019t matter to PMI, which also continues to target low-income countries for market expansion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While expanding its cigarette business, PMI is employing old tactics\u2014such as\u00a0targeting young people\u00a0and\u00a0attempting to justify tobacco industry presence\u00a0in regulatory policy\u2014in new settings with new products. During the COVID-19 crisis,\u00a0tobacco industry funded doctors\u00a0have lauded\u00a0vaping as a safer option, and PMI has used its\u00a0investments in a vaccine development company\u00a0as well as hypocritical corporate social responsibility stunts,\u00a0like donating ventilators to the government\u00a0of Greece, as justifications for Big Tobacco funding in public health.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile industries are working to respond to the COVID-19 crisis in a responsible way, PMI is trying to exploit this crisis to sell iQOS and more cigarettes,\u201d said\u00a0<b>Daniel Dorado, Senior Latin America and International Policy Organizer at<\/b>\u00a0<b>Corporate Accountability<\/b><b>.<\/b>\u00a0\u201cBut actions speak louder than marketing: During this pandemic, PMI is just doubling down on addicting new people to harmful tobacco products.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>PMI\u2019s report\u00a0on first quarter earnings reveals the true nature of the corporation\u2019s concerns during COVID-19. In the report, PMI attempts to quell potential investor concerns about how COVID-19 will negatively impact consumer access to its products; the diminished duty-free sales in airports it\u00a0has spent years building up; and a delay in implementation of tobacco-industry-friendly regulations all around the globe.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPMI works behind the scenes to circumvent tobacco control policy, compromise the lungs of our children, and ensure that Big Tobacco has a stranglehold on the African continent as well as other parts of the globe,\u201d said\u00a0<b><span lang=\"NL\">Philip Jakpor, Programmes Director at<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<b>Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA)<\/b>.\u00a0\u201cPMI must stop compromising our governments and institutions and take responsibility for the harms done by its products.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>PMI\u2019s rebranding efforts have not prevented governments from taking action to hold the corporation liable for its past and present abuses. PMI is currently facing 17 lawsuits in four countries for recovery of health costs resulting from tobacco use, as well as additional cases for illegal interference in tobacco control policy.<\/p>\n<p>The corporation\u2019s attempts to gain entry into public health policymaking spaces is one of the main drivers behind its rebrand. PMI has gone to extremes to try and block, weaken, and delay tobacco regulations in individual countries and the global tobacco treaty negotiations. At the next Conference of the Parties, initially scheduled for November 2020\u00a0but now delayed until 2021, governments will discuss the\u00a0Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, strengthening liability policy, and preventing industry interference.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat is the main obstacle for accelerating tobacco control? Tobacco industry interference!\u201d said\u00a0<b><span lang=\"IT\">Eduardo Bianco\u00a0<\/span><\/b><b>of the<\/b>\u00a0<b>Framework Convention Alliance on Tobacco Control, Regional Coordinator for the Americas<\/b>.\u00a0\u201cGovernments must be on the offense, not the defense, with Big Tobacco. Ongoing and future litigation against PMI and other tobacco corporations to recover health costs incurred from cigarette use\u2014and to implement rigorous tobacco control policy to keep this industry in check\u2014<span lang=\"PT\">is crucial.<\/span>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tobacco remains the number one cause of preventable death in the world, killing more than eight million people every year. PMI\u2019s actions make clear that it is not equipped to self-regulate: in the absence of rigorous tobacco control policy, the corporation will continue to addict new people to its deadly products.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/alternativeadvert.com\/show.php?z=30&amp;pl=19271&amp;ad_type=81&amp;rl=1800\" width=\"336\" height=\"280\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Amid a global health crisis, Philip Morris International (PMI) will virtually gather shareholders on Wednesday, May 6, 2020, to applaud the corporation\u2019s continued efforts to rebrand itself as \u2018smoke-free.\u2019 PMI\u2019s annual meeting was preempted by tobacco control advocates Tuesday, who exposed that while PMI would have the world believe it is changing, it\u2019s still using [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":24382,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[23],"tags":[5790,5788,5789,5787,2197,5786],"class_list":["post-24381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news","tag-adriana-blanco-marquizo","tag-cappa","tag-daniel-dorado","tag-eduardo-bianco","tag-philip-jakpor","tag-philip-morris-internationalpmi"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/smoking.png","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-6lf","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24381"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24383,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24381\/revisions\/24383"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}