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The chief executive of the company that makes Marlboro cigarettes was quoted by Britain’s Mail on Sunday as saying that the tobacco company foresaw an end to its sales of traditional cigarettes in Britain within 10 years. “I want to allow this company to leave smoking behind,” Jacek Olczak, the CEO of Philip Morris International, was quoted in the paper saying. “I think in the UK, ten years from now maximum, you can completely solve the problem of smoking.” […] For years, Philip Morris has said that its future will not include Marlboro cigarettes as it shifts to electronic devices....

SNIP Tobacco giant Philip Morris International is joining in on the “New Year, New Me” idea by announcing it wants to give up smoking in the New Year. The maker of such brands Marlboro, L&M and Parliament took out full-page ads in several UK newspapers that said its 2018 ambition is to build a smoke-free future and eventually stop selling cigarettes, USA Today reported. “Philip Morris is known for cigarettes. Every year, many smokers give them up. Now it’s our turn,” according to the blue and white ad, which was published in Business Insider. SNIP

A new blog post written by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) may appear to be an attempt to align with Hillary Clinton, but it takes direct aim at multiple Clinton Foundation donors. Warren’s post, “I agree with Hillary Clinton,” details her concerns with a provision in the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement that she says “would let foreign companies challenge American laws outside of American courts.” “The Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provision isn’t a one-time, hypothetical problem—we’ve seen it in past trade agreements,” Warren wrote. Three of the five companies Warren uses as examples of companies that have abused similar...

Tobacco giant Philip Morris International (PMI) wants to challenge new EU rules on tobacco to see if it can get the stricter labeling requirements changed. The Marlboro manufacturer on Friday (27 June) said the EU’s new tobacco products directive “appears to ban truthful and non-misleading claims on the packaging of tobacco products”. “PMI intends to seek review of whether this ban respects the fundamental rights of consumers to information about the products they are choosing,” it added. The EU’s reformed directive says cigarette packages must have “Smoking Kills—Quit Now” and “Tobacco smoke contains over 70 substances known to cause cancer”...

The European Union’s member states today (14 March) gave final approval to a revision of rules on tobacco products that tighten the content and marketing of both cigarettes and electronic cigarettes. […] The tobacco manufacturer Philip Morris countered that: “The new rules will do little to improve public health and will make the EU less competitive, pushing even more consumers to the unregulated black market in tobacco.” The new legislation requires bigger health warnings on packets of cigarettes and roll-your-own tobacco. All characterizing flavors, such as menthol, will be prohibited as will the sale of packs with fewer than 20...

Not content with masterminding Obamacare, which taxes, regulates, and disincentivizes the healthcare industry into nothing more than a capitulatory utility under government control, Democrat Senator Max Baucus used the recently passed transportation bill as the vehicle to exterminate thousands of jobs with the stroke of Barack Obama’s pen. In addition to the $400 million the senator earmarked for his state’s highway system, the Montana senator mischievously added a separate and unrelated special interest earmark to the transportation bill as a nod to his Big Tobacco benefactors at Altria, a parent company of tobacco giant Philip Morris. How did he appease...

RICHMOND The nation’s largest cigarette maker today secured a key victory when a Senate panel voted to classify as manufacturers Virginia retailers with machines that let customers roll their own cigarettes. Backed by several powerful lobbying allies, Philip Morris USA persuaded the Senate Finance Committee to approve a bill supporters claim will require shops with roll-your-own machines to pay some federal and state tobacco taxes they’re now avoiding. Imposing such standards will create a level playing field, industry officials have said. Opponents argue the measure, SB 74 [1] from Powhatan County Republican Sen. John Watkins, actually is an attempt by...

The Supreme Court on Monday sided with Philip Morris USA, refusing to disturb a court ruling that threw out a $10.1 billion verdict over the company's "light" cigarettes. The court issued its order without comment. Last year, the Illinois Supreme Court threw out the massive fraud judgment against Philip Morris, a unit of the Altria Group Inc., in a class-action lawsuit involving "light" cigarettes. Because the Federal Trade Commission allowed companies to characterize their cigarettes as "light" and "low tar," Philip Morris could not be held liable under state law even if the terms it used could be found false...

APRIL 10--Philip Morris is threatening legal action over the sale of a "Smoking Baby" doll--but not because the tobacco giant is offended by the thought of an infant lighting up, but rather because the diapered cigarette enthusiast appears to be enjoying a trademarked Marlboro. In an April 7 letter to Toy Lounge, an online retailer, Philip Morris attorneys contend that the $5.95 ceramic doll comes equipped with a pack of cigarettes bearing a "logo confusingly similar" to Marlboro's "roof design," which is further described as "a pentagonal figure with a horizontal top and two vertical sides with two upwardly and...

Postal Service Now Major Delivery Agent for Contraband FedEx Express and FedEx Ground (FedEx) have agreed to undertake changes to their business practices that will strengthen their policies prohibiting the delivery of cigarettes to consumers throughout the United States, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer announced. "I commend FedEx for joining in this important effort," said Spitzer. "This is another example of private industry joining with law enforcement to address important social problems. When private companies like FedEx take the initiative to protect their services from being used by those engaged in criminal conduct, we all win." FedEx's current policy...

Salem, Ore. (AP) -- The Oregon Supreme Court upheld on Thursday a $79.5 million punitive damages award to the family of an Oregon smoker who died of lung cancer, saying the amount isn't excessive given the "reprehensible" conduct of tobacco giant Philip Morris in marketing cigarettes. The decision upholds a lower court ruling and responds to a U.S. Supreme Court decision that asked Oregon courts to consider whether the award in the lawsuit against Philip Morris, a unit of Altria Group Inc., was excessive. The state Supreme Court said it was not excessive, given "such extreme and outrageous circumstances."

WASHINGTON, Jan. 27 (Yonhap) -- North Korea has established itself as the leading counterfeiter of brand-name cigarettes, circulating more than two billion packs a year worldwide from Taiwan to Belize, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday. Cigarette maker Philip Morris was tracking down the source of fake Marlboros, and a year later in 2005, the company connected them to North Korea, the paper said. Cigarette companies have hired former intelligence officials to crack down on the operation and even sent agents into North Korea, and what they discovered was an ongoing lucrative business in the hermit state, sanctioned by...

CHICAGO, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Cigarette maker Philip Morris USA on Thursday said it agreed to suspend shipments to customers that states find have illegally sold cigarettes over the Internet or by fax, mail or telephone. The unit of Altria Group Inc.  reached the agreement with attorneys general in 33 states and other jurisdictions as a way of trying to curtail illegal sales of cigarettes over the Internet and through the mail. Opponents of these "remote" sales of cigarettes argue that they let customers avoid age restrictions for purchasing cigarettes, as well as state excise taxes. The maker of Marlboro...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A jury found Friday that tobacco maker Philip Morris USA is not liable for damages in the death of a man who smoked for 35 years. The jury returned its verdict in the case of Fredric Reller of Marina del Rey, a longtime Marlboro smoker who first sued the company in Nov., 2001, alleging that Philip Morris misled him by failing, for years, to acknowledge that smoking is addictive and may cause cancer. A jury cleared Philip Morris, the nation's biggest cigarette maker, last August of negligence and misrepresentation in the lawsuit, but deadlocked on one...

(CNSNews.com) -- The world's first tobacco control treaty comes into force on Sunday, as the World Health Organization and 57 countries declare war on the tobacco industry and "the tobacco epidemic." More than 160 nations signed the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), and 57 countries -- including France, Germany, Japan, Canada and Mexico -- have ratified it. The legally binding treaty is "designed to reduce the devastating health and economic impact of tobacco," according to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control website. In addition to banning advertisements for tobacco products, the treaty encourages countries to increase tobacco taxes and...

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) President Bush plans to use his first trip of the new year to visit a little southern Illinois county with a big reputation as one of the country's best places for lawyers to file enormous lawsuits. Labeled a ``judicial hellhole'' by one group, Madison County is already a focal point in the national debate over lawsuit reform, and Bush's presence is certain to raise its profile even higher. During a visit to Collinsville Wednesday, Bush will address more than 1,000 doctors, business leaders and Republican officials on reining in lawsuits that the president says have driven up...

Altria Group Inc.'s Philip Morris USA has initiated a long-awaited increase in cigarette prices, providing what some analysts consider the first sign of life in the U.S. cigarette market since 2002. Philip Morris on Friday confirmed earlier analyst reports that it notified wholesalers Thursday of a reduction in the current "off-invoice promotional allowance," by $1 to $5.50 a carton, for its Marlboro, Virginia Slims, Parliament and Basic cigarette brands. An off-invoice promotional allowance is a form of wholesale discount, and analysts said the reduction effectively raises cigarette prices by about $1 a carton, or 10 cents a pack. The lower...

Standing outside the Capitol in Albany one summer afternoon in 1998, Eliot Spitzer released a statement that said if he became attorney general, he would use the considerable power, influence and bully pulpit of the office to "take on all the problems that have led to governmental stagnation and corruption in New York." During his nearly six years in office, Mr. Spitzer has indeed claimed the mantle of reform. But he has done it by focusing on the financial and insurance industries - not state government. Mr. Spitzer has built a nationwide reputation as an aggressive pursuer of corporate malfeasance....

...Bottom line: The industry's shareholders long ago were reduced to the role of cutouts, allowed to keep collecting a small piece of the pie so politicians can go on posing as scourges of "Big Tobacco" even as government has become, effectively, the "beneficial owner" of the major tobacco companies.... New York State has a court fight on its hands over its punitive exactions from such companies, which were not party to any lawsuit and never did anything wrong. Georgia has cracked down too, whacking innocent brands for benefit of local employer Brown & Williamson. And the state of Wisconsin even...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The California Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by Philip Morris USA to reduce punitive damages awarded to a former smoker with lung cancer who won a landmark verdict against the tobacco giant. With a unanimous vote Wednesday, the state's high court reinstated $10.5 million in damages to Patricia Henley, dismissing Philip Morris' appeal without comment. The company could seek further review in the U.S. Supreme Court. In April, the court agreed to hear the company's appeal and decide whether $9 million in punitive damages went beyond limits set recently by the U.S. Supreme Court. The...