Philip Morris CEO calls for date to be set for full smoking ban

The boss of the tobacco giant behind the iconic Marlboro Man said a date should be set to ban cigarettes.

Report informs via foreign media that Jacek Olczak, chief executive of Philip Morris International (PMI), has made it his mission to make old-style gaspers a thing of the past – and he says cigarettes should be replaced by alternatives such as vapes.

Since 2016, the company, which is best known for brands such as Marlboro and Benson & Hedges, has been trying to transform itself from the world’s biggest tobacco firm into a scientific hub that can help smokers quit for good.

It has invested more than £8.5billion in this ‘smoke-free future’ – from research papers to promotion of new products.

Olczak believes that a move on cigarettes similar to the combustion engine would have to be on a timescale that gives consumers and the industry time to respond and change.

‘Looking at what the UK is doing in the car industry, saying that as of a certain year you are not allowed to produce petrol cars, we could have this with tobacco too,’ he told the Mail.

Olczak was himself a smoker for two decades until he tried the brand’s IQOS heated tobacco device, which costs £39 for a starter kit.

Products such as heated tobacco and e-vapes now account for nearly 35pc of total annual revenues at PMI.