Philip Morris International

American global cigarette and tobacco company

Philip Morris International (PMI) is an American multinational tobacco company, with products sold in over 180 countries. The most recognized and best selling product of the company is Marlboro. Philip Morris International is often referred to as one of the companies comprising Big Tobacco.

All of us at Philip Morris, no matter where we work, are extremely sorry for this. No one benefits from the very real, serious and significant diseases caused by smoking. ~ Philip Morris International

The company's legal seat is in Stamford, Connecticut, but it does not operate in the United States of America. Philip Morris USA, a subsidiary of PMI's former owner American parent Altria group, owns the Philip Morris brands there. PMI's operational headquarters are in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Quotes

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  • Last year we witnessed the launch of the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World... It is funded by the tobacco industry itself... We call on governments and the public health community to have nothing to do with this foundation... Even internal Philip Morris documents indicate that these efforts were designed to normalize the company and its deadly products. It shows they are doing this for themselves, not for the poor people suffering from tobacco.
  • All of us at Philip Morris, no matter where we work, are extremely sorry for this. No one benefits from the very real, serious and significant diseases caused by smoking.

Quotes about

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  • As the most powerful state, the U.S. makes its own laws, using force and conducting economic warfare at will. It also threatens sanctions against countries that do not abide by its conveniently flexible notions of "free trade." In one important case, Washington has employed such threats with great effectiveness (and GATT approval) to force open Asian markets for U.S. tobacco exports and advertising, aimed primarily at the growing markets of women and children. The U.S. Agriculture Department has provided grants to tobacco firms to promote smoking overseas. Asian countries have attempted to conduct educational anti-smoking campaigns, but they are overwhelmed by the miracles of the market, reinforced by U.S. state power through the sanctions threat. Philip Morris, with an advertising and promotion budget of close to $9 billion in 1992, became China's largest advertiser. The effect of Reaganite sanction threats was to increase advertising and promotion of cigarette smoking (particularly U.S. brands) quite sharply in Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea, along with the use of these lethal substances. In South Korea, for example, the rate of growth in smoking more than tripled when markets for U.S. lethal drugs were opened in 1988. The Bush Administration extended the threats to Thailand, at exactly the same time that the "war on drugs" was declared; the media were kind enough to overlook the coincidence, even suppressing the outraged denunciations by the very conservative Surgeon-General. Oxford University epidemiologist Richard Peto estimates that among Chinese children under 20 today, 50 million will die of cigarette-related diseases...

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