A personal decision
I’ll never forget the sickly sweet smell of the Opium she wore to mask the smell.
My mother died of cancer six years ago. She was 65 years old. It began as breast cancer, metastasised to her bones and ended up in her brain. I have a photograph of her two months before she died with her grandchildren. My eldest has some memory of her but my other two were too young.
Mum was a strong swimmer, a healthy eater but a heavy smoker. She was hospitalised with emphysema before she was diagnosed with cancer. My sister, a GP, spoke to her in graphic detail about her chain-smoking. I remember her tearfully telling me how much she wanted to quit, to stick around to enjoy life to a ripe old age. She tried gum and patches and going ‘cold turkey’ several times but could find little comfort in anything other than cigarettes.
So, when a former journalist and colleague who now works at Philip Morris International (PMI) came knocking at my door I was intrigued, if a little bewildered. When the company subsequently offered me a senior digital content role to work exclusively on their ‘smoke-free’ campaign I was flattered but sceptical.
Why would I work for a company that’s done so much to promote a harmful product to so many people over so many years? How genuine is their commitment to abandon cigarettes completely? What could I possibly gain by leaving public service journalism for a company so untrusted, so vilified?
I set about talking to as many people as I could and surprised myself.
As another unlikely recent recruit to PMI has said, this is a unique opportunity to help shape a message that will affect the lives of millions of people for years to come.
Yes, it’s undeniable that the world would be a better place if cigarettes did not exist.
Yes, there’s much more work to be done to prove unequivocally that a “smoke-free future” is not replacing one addiction with another.
Yes, we all need to hold tobacco companies like PMI to their commitments and ensure non-combustible products, like IQOS, are not marketed at non-smokers and under 18s.
But, for those millions of hardened smokers, as Public Health England have asserted, smokeless products have a valuable role to play. And, there might just be the chance to play a small part in eradicating smoking – at least where I’m based, within my lifetime.
I have raised money for Cancer Research, have never smoked and hope and pray that none of my children are tempted to try themselves. But the opportunity to work inside a company willing to invest so heavily in an alternative future is irresistible.
Some will say that PMI’s new ‘vision’ is cynical, self-serving and denies the fact that 80 percent of the world’s billion plus smokers live in countries where cigarettes still rule.
These are easy statements to make but maybe it’s time to right some wrongs, to be a little braver? As the company’s SVP for global communications says:
For so many years, we’ve been bruised, and apologetic, and maybe afraid, and suddenly we have something to be extraordinarily proud of.
Scientific research still has some way to travel and the transition to ‘smoke-free’ products is very much in its infancy. I will need to hold the company to its promises and keep an open mind about progress. But if I can play a small role maybe, just maybe, there’s chance of helping to deliver something genuinely transformative.
(Addendum: Please note that these are entirely my own thoughts and in no way represent the views of the BBC)
