Marlboro cigarettes manufacturer Philip Morris International (PMI) has announced plans to sell “smokeless cigarettes” in the UAE.

The move was prompted by a new set of standards established in the UAE this April to allow the sale and use of electronic cigarettes and vaping devices.

PMI said that 11 supermarkets and stores as well as an outlet at Dubai Duty Free would sell its I-Quit-Ordinary-Smoking (IQOS) devices.

The company claims that the devices’ “heat, not burn” technology is “potentially less harmful” than traditional cigarettes. The absence of combustion is the fundamental difference from cigarettes: the IQOS 3 and IQOS 3 MULTI devices use a ceramic blade to heat tobacco to a precisely controlled temperature of approximately 350 degrees Celsius, below the point where combustion occurs, PMI said in a statement. By heating tobacco instead of burning it, the product offers a cleaner way of using tobacco that involves no smoke, no ash and less smell.

PMI has invested more than $6 billion in developing, evaluating and producing reduced-risk alternatives to smoking for existing smokers who don’t want to quit altogether. One of its measurable targets and projects is for at least 40 million PMI cigarette smokers to switch to PMI’s smoke-free products by 2025.

Philip Morris will sell IQOS devices over the counter for the first time at 250 dirhams.

“We estimate that there are more than 9 million adult smokers in the GCC,” said Tarkan Demibras, Vice President Middle East, PMI.  “The best thing that those people can do for their health is to quit, but most of them likely will not. We are excited to be in a position to provide them with a better alternative to continuing to smoke. The launch of IQOS 3 affirms our commitment to innovate with technologically advanced and scientifically substantiated products that provide adult smokers with better choices.”

The WTO says that the most effective method to encourage cigarette smokers to quit is by hiking up the price of cigarettes. According to news agency WAM, since the “sin tax” was introduced in the UAE in 2017, there has been a huge drop in the value of Abu Dhabi’s tobacco trade, from 410 million dirhams in 2017 to 62.4 million dirhams last year. The UAE government will not tax heating devices, but the tobacco refills will be subject to a 100 per cent duty under the 2017 “sin tax”.

However, many medical researchers say that they are not as harmless as some would suggest.  For instance, Dr Farzad Moazed of the University of California, San Francisco, who was part of the expert panel convened by the US Food and Drug Administration to determine whether PMI can sell IQOS device as a lower-risk cigarette, recommended against the move, offering fresh evidence of health risks associated with IQOS.

“Even if a patient could switch completely from regular cigarettes to heat-not-burn products, Philip Morris International’s own data shows that there will continue to be significant health risks associated with these products,” Reuters quoted Dr. Moazed as saying. “Although quitting smoking is challenging, there are many other options for smoking cessation that are more effective and safer than the use of these products.”

After a two-year review, PMI got the FDA nod to sell IQOS devices this April in the US. The agency said that allowing the device to be sold is “appropriate for the protection of the public health because [...] the products produce fewer or lower levels of some toxins than combustible cigarettes.”

(Writing by Seban Scaria, editing by Daniel Luiz)

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