JUMEIRAH, Abu Dhabi—Philip Morris International (PMI) Chief Executive Officer Jacek Olczak on Wednesday, Dec. 11, lamented the existing policies in some countries that ban less harmful alternatives to cigarettes, such as smoke-free products, while countries that allow these alternatives have seen a decline in the number of cigarette smokers.
 

PMI CEO Jacek Olczak speaks during the Technovation Summit held in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024. (Raymund Antonio/MANILA BULLETIN)

He made these remarks during the “Technovation Smoke-free by PMI Abu Dhabi Edition”, where Olczak was the speaker for its first session entitled, “PMI’s Journey to Smoke-Free: Past, Present, & Future.”
 

“Depriving these people of having an access to this product where everyone knows that better products exist while continue allowing the sales of cigarettes is almost immoral. So, I think something has to change because otherwise we are collaterally wasting time,” he told the attendees, which were composed of representatives from various media organizations in the region.
 

He cited Japan and Sweden as two of the countries that benefited successfully from allowing smoke-free products, such as heated tobacco products like PMI’s IQOS.
 

PMI’s development of smoke-free alternatives started in Nagoya a decade ago and since then, Japan’s cigarette-smoking population has declined by about 70 percent, Olczak said.
 

But even then, Japan is yet to be smoke-free, he noted.
 

Sweden, on the other hand, has encouraged the use of nicotine pouches such as Zyn over the last 20 years and has seen its smoking prevalence drop to below five percent.
 

The PMI chief cited that “we live in a time of innovations can come and can accelerate the decline of the smoking and help those who dont quit, to switch to this product.”
 

However, he also called out “quite a number of markets that ban alternatives or don’t allow alternatives to be commercialized,” while “there is not a single country in the world who has banned cigarettes.”
 

In these countries—India, Turkey, and Vietnam, among others—Olczak noted that “cigarette volumes are going up.”
 

Stressing that “cigarettes should disappear,” the official added that “I think we are crossing the line of what is proper, what is human, what are the human rights of the people, we are crossing the line of morality.”
 

To him, banning cigarette alternatives is “wasting time” because there are existing evidence that “different product formats could have addressed that problem in a faster manner.”
 

This, he said, is the goal of the Technovation—to build awareness, talk about the available products, discuss opportunities, and bring these products to the market.
 

“But I think more and more we have to look from the humans behind all these things. There are people behind these all things,” Olczak said.
 

“This is one billion of smokers who should have a right today to the information and product itself,” he added.