Marlboro maker faces legal action over ‘healthier’ tobacco adverts

THE Government will take one of the world’s largest tobacco firms to court unless it stops illegally targeting UK consumers with tobacco adverts, a minister has said.

Yesterday the Department of Health (DOH) sent a formal order to Philip Morris, which makes Marlboro cigarettes, telling it to remove poster adverts for “healthier” tobacco products from shops around the UK.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, Steve Brine, public health minister, warned that the department was prepared to take legal action against Philip Morris in order to protect UK consumers from being targeted by the adverts.

Unlawful advertisement of tobacco can result in a financial penalty or custodial sentence of up to six months. Philip Morris denies the adverts are illegal and claims it wants to help smokers by providing better tobacco alternatives. It comes after an investigation by this newspaper found that the maker of Marlboro cigarettes was supplying newsagents across Britain with window posters promoting new IQOS tobacco heaters.

Philip Morris has spent £3bn developing IQOS, which it is marketing as a healthier alternative to cigarettes. The IQOS technology is an electronic “heat not burn” system, which heats tobacco sticks up to 662F (350C), around half the temperature of cigarettes, to generate a nicotine-containing vapour.

Public Health England has warned more research is needed to establish its health implications, which are thought to be less serious than cigarettes but worse than e-cigarettes, which heat liquid instead of tobacco. The IQOS posters are in breach of a strict longstanding ban on advertising tobacco and tobacco-related products, the DOH and the National Trading Standards Institute have confirmed.

Mr Brine said: “We have been explicit that the promotion of tobacco products is unlawful – as my letter to Philip Morris International makes abundantly clear. Smoking kills 78,000 people every year and I am committed to doing all I can to protect people from the harms of tobacco. We expect PMI to stop this unlawful advertisement ... and we will not rule out legal action if they continue.”

Previously, Peter Nixon, UK MD at Philip Morris, has defended the posters claiming they are lawful because tobacco advertising laws were designed for cigarettes, not tobacco heaters.