Cigarettes once featured prominently in Hollywood movies and fashion magazines. But decades of evidence that smoking kills has led to a sharp drop in consumption.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the tobacco industry sold fewer than 11 billion packs of cigarettes in the United States in 2020, down from more than 21 billion packs two decades ago.
This has created an existential crisis for tobacco companies.
Altria Group, the largest U.S. tobacco company and parent of Philip Morris USA, reported a nearly 10 percent drop in cigarette sales last year from the year before. The maker of Marlboro said it wanted to help smokers transition from cigarettes to so-called “harm-reducing alternatives” such as e-cigarettes and heat-not-burn products.
But Altria’s transformation has raised eyebrows among critics. Cigarettes and cigars accounted for about 89 percent of sales last year.
So, are e-cigarettes and heat-not-burn products less harmful than traditional cigarettes? How will these devices affect children?
Watch the video to learn more.