There is an international business that has launched a tobacco product in the United States that it hopes will “end cigarette smoking for good.”

The surprising part: That company is Philip Morris International.

Stacey Kennedy, CEO of PMI North America, believes it has the right technology to do it.

Kennedy was in Miami earlier this month as part of the U.S. launch of PMI’s IQOS device, a “heat-not-burn” tobacco product that replicates the smoking experience but with far less health risk. By heating the tobacco without burning it, the devices release an aerosol, rather than smoke, delivering nicotine with fewer harmful chemicals.

PMI spent $14 billion on the research and development of IQOS, which is available in 70 countries but didn’t come to the United States until its Austin, Texas, debut in March. In 2020, the Food and Drug Administration authorized PMI to market IQOS as a modified-risk tobacco product, reducing a smoker’s exposure to harmful chemicals if they make the switch.

“We are really focused on smoke-free,” Kennedy said. “We are focused on the 45 million American men and women over the age of 21 who consume nicotine regularly. And we want to go as fast as possible to be able to make a positive impact on public health.”

And, she adds, they’re making progress. “Already, we’ve got 42 percent of our global net revenue coming from smoke-free products, and 44 percent of our global profits.”

Entering the “harm reduction” market puts PMI and others at odds with parts of the public health establishment that argue the only acceptable policy toward tobacco use is prohibition. It’s the policy that is guiding states like Massachusetts, where lawmakers have imposed a total ban on flavored tobacco products, including menthol cigarettes and any flavored vapes.

Led by Brookline, Mass., several communities have passed laws banning all sales to people born after January 1, 2000.

Many public health experts say trying to persuade all tobacco users to quit cold turkey is a forlorn hope. Given that cigarette smoking remains the leading preventable cause of death in the United States, killing 450,000 people yearly, the 14 percent or so of the population that continues to use nicotine products needs safer choices to mitigate risk.

That’s the view of Jeff Stier, senior fellow at Consumer Choice Center, who says that whether it’s heat-not-burn or pouches or vapes, moving smokers away from cigarettes is a smart public health policy.

“Smokers are not monolithic; different people like different things.”

What makes IQOS different, says Bonin Bough, is that “it meets the consumer where they are with a product that is as close to the same sensation, but with all the benefits of not being a combustible product. And that’s what IQOS does.”

Bough is co-founder and chief strategy officer of Group Black, the largest Black-owned brand. He’s also a lifelong smoker who switched to heat-not-burn and sits on the PMI board.

“I started smoking around 14 years old,” Bough says. “I think IQOS is a truly transitional product because it mimics the experience you have as a smoker.”

States are debating whether to treat smoking alternatives like heat-not-burn or vapes, etc., like traditional cigarettes when it comes to tax policy. Stier says from a public health standpoint, this would be a mistake. Instead, he supports lower taxes on lower-risk products to help encourage smokers of combustible cigarettes to make the switch. He would have high excise taxes on cigarettes, medium excise taxes on IQOS, lower excise taxes on e-cigarettes, and no excise tax on FDA-approved pharmaceutical gums and patches.

He’s not hopeful this will be the outcome in the current political climate.

“It would be naive of me to suggest that governments, especially state governments, would act in a rational manner,” Stier said. Tobacco tax policy at the state level isn’t driven by a public-health strategy but by the desire to increase revenues. States want to treat lower-risk products like pouches, vapes and heat-not-burn the same as combustible cigarettes “because they’re trying to plug those in their budgets.”

“Which proves that the only people who are as addicted to tobacco as smokers,” Stier added, “are state legislators.”

Chris Woodward writes about industry and technology for InsideSources.com.