I've been thinking this one over for a while, and I believe that PM might just have a decent medium term strategy here. This post might be a bit long, but bear with me.
Tobacco smokers have been around (in Western countries) for over 400 years. At various times kings, imams, dictators, and elected representatives have persecuted the participants in this particular pastime/drug (sorry for the alliteration, but it was irresistable), even to the extent of hanging, shooting and quartering them. Hilter's anti-smoking nazism was mild, by comparison!
Regardless of what has been done to the smoker over the centuries, however, we have not only survived as a group, but thrived. In fact, wherever smoking has been introduced, it has been taken up by, on average, between 20% and 60% of the population. Of course, this must mean that it's terribly addictive. (But, hang on, in countries in which the dangers of smoking have been extrapolated, exaggerated and generally embroidered, more people are ex-smokers than are smokers! Wow! Must be terribly addictive!)
So, the take-up rate must mean that a whole lot of people get something really good from smoking. In fact, history would tend to indicate that:- (a) about 25% of the population get something from it for a period of time in their life; (b) 25% of the population get something from it for their entire life; (c) 45% of the population get nothing from it; and (d) 5% of the population hate it with the zeal of fascists. Throughout the entire course of history, even the 5% occasionally have their day - we're just unfortunate enough to be living through it.
PM know that, even though James I and other random idiots throughout history have actually killed people for smoking, it has survived and thrived. That within a relatively short period of time (by the standards of a 400 year old company), the nico-nazis will have had their day and faded into obscurity. Just look at the "Carry Nation" puritans who tried to ban smoking in the early 1900's - they crashed and smoking returned with avengence.
PM know that, regardless of what happens in the next ten, twenty, thirty years, they'll still have a viable product and, eventually the nico-nazis will run out of puff (before the average smoker will!).
So, what are PM doing? Well, by getting FDA approval, cigarettes become a drug (that is, a "pharmaceutical", not an illegal narcotic). Far from taxing pharmaceuticals to the hilt, our society actually subsidise them to the hilt!
In the end, the FDA is both a political and a practical body. They are not going to deny 25% of the population of their favorite pastime. And PM see both legitimacy and an end to the continual persecution of their product and of smokers if cigarettes are put into the same category as Celebrex, Viagra, Zyban, Nicorettes, etc.
What's wrong with buying your smokes from the Drug Store? I remember buying them from an old Druggist as recently as five years ago! Apparently, they all used to do it.
Anyway, PM don't really worry about the FDA banning their product (because they won't and can't), they just want legitimacy and the same type of "protection" given to tobacco which is given to other drugs. Will they get it? Who knows. Will smoking stop or even reduce if the FDA gets control? 400+ years of experience says, "No".
If I was an executive of PM, I wouldn't even be bothering to ask whether people would still be smoking in 100 years time - that's a given. All I'd be asking is, "How can we survive the shakedowns of the next five years?" Because within five years, the hysteria and lawsuits will be over, but it could conceivably kill the company in the meantime.
One legitimate answer would be to get FDA approval and get into the arena of subidised drugs, rather than hyper-taxed vice!
Anyway, that's my two cents worth (actually, long enough to be two bucks worth, plus Govt cigarette-related-post taxes, making it $10).
"I don't want any of your statistics. I took your whole batch and lit my pipe with it. I hate your kind of people. You are always ciphering out how much a man's health is injured, and how much his intellect is impaired, and how many pitiful dollars and cents he wastes in the course of ninety-two years' indulgence in the fatal practice of smoking"
Mark Twain, 1865
Disclaimer: My comments are most definitely not intended to be an endorsement of PM, who treat their customers in the same way as banks and stockbrokers - disposable, interchangeable and dispensable.
With all due respect, I don't want to have to go to the "special place" to buy my butts.
One legitimate answer would be to get FDA approval and get into the arena of subidised drugs
I don't want to be a government subsidizee, because the Nazis want to pathologize a pasttime that millions find pleasurable.
I love the Mark Twain quote!