Hi, I'm Ethan Natalman, and this is Psychoactive, a production of I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. Psychoactive is the show where we talk about all things drugs. But any of you has expressed here do not represent those of my Heart Media, Protozoa Pictures, or their executives and employees. Indeed, heat as an inveterate contrarian, I can tell you they may not even represent my own and nothing contained in this show should be used as medical advice or encouragement to use any type of drugs. Hello, Psychoactive listeners. My guest today is Andre Collinsopolis. He is perhaps the most famous current figure in the world of big tobacco. He's worked at Philip Morris International, the huge tobacco conglomerate, for almost forty years. He's been the chief operating officer, the chief ex ecutive officers now chairman of the board. And I want to be talking to him today for two reasons. One is, you know what's it like to head one of the most vilified companies in the world selling a product that kills half the people who use it as designed. But at the same time he has been the most forward thinking and outspoken of the big tobacco leaders in advocating for a rapid transition from cigarettes and other combustible forms of tobacco to e cigarettes, inhalable forms and other harm reduction approaches. So, Andre, thank you so much for agreeing to talk with me on Psychoactive. Well, Leathan, thank you very much for having me, and thank you for this very nice introduction, which I don't think I deserve everything you said, but I'm very happy to be on the show. Okay, so let me let me revamp it a bit dead. So some people, you know, would regard you as sort the devil incarnate, right, the guy who's leading one of the biggest companies in the world that's selling these tobacco cigarettes cancer sticks that kills half of all long term users when used as directed Right, you know, eight million people are going to die this year around the world from smoking, either directly or from second hand smoke in some cases. On the other hand, you've also been the head of a company which is made what appears to be of all the big tobacco companies, the most serious commitment to to basically shifting out of combustible cigarettes into other forms of nicotine consumption. That are widely believed to be much safer. So I want to start off by saying, you know, I saw the fellow. I'm not sure I pronounce his name, Old Jack, your CEO. The guy who worked for you for many years, has replaced you as a CEO he said. Last year, he goes, I want to allow this company to leave smoking behind. I think in the UK ten years from now maximum you completely solve the problem of smoking. And when he was then asked that then, Philip Morris, we started selling traditional cigarettes in the UK within that time, he replied, absolutely. So say a little more about that. Well, let's give some context for the audience. Clearly it's very well down. Cigarettes cause disease and unaddictive and premature deaths. So what is less known is the reason or the main reason for that. And the main reason for that is combustion, the fact that we burn tobacco, and that's what creates most of the toxic substances that cause morbidity and mortality. So the answer to resolving the problem for the people that would otherwise continue using cigarettes is not to combast a substrate. And the first thing we did is to develop a portfolio of products that comprise heated tobacco, so heated the temperatures that don't create combustion, which diminishes very significantly the toxical is generated by We also have products in what is more known in the US, like vapor products, and we also have products that are in the form of pouches that contain no tobacco at all. So all these products do contain nicotine because that's important for smokers to switch, but they don't combast, so we have a very substantial reduction in their toxicity. The second thing to do, and we've done, is to substantiate scientifically that these products actually in pre clinical and clinical trials demonstrate reduction of toxicity exposure to the toxicans and eventually you know, the promise of a re action in morbidity and mortality. And we have submitted these studies to many countries, including to the US Food and Drug Administration, which issued in order that these products reduced the exposure and authorize their sale in the US. So I think, on one side, we need manufacturers to invest in developing these products and then put their hearts and their money behind convincing existing smokers to switch to these products. But this is the first step and the second step clear and I'm sure we'll discuss this, is to have regulators in the US and around the world adopting the right policies that differentiates these products, that cigarettes, recognizing the absence of combustion and the lower toxicity, so the potential benefit to public health, so that we encourage, through commercial activities on side, the regulatory frameworks on the other side, smokers to switch. And if we do that properly, I think we can phase out cigarettes very fast. Now, what do you say when people say, you know, until you've got longitudal studies twenty three or thirty years of data, it's all bullshit. I mean that we don't really know what these things are going to do to people twenty thirty years from now. So let's just hold your horses and let's you know, hold back and making a big switch into the non combustibles. What's your response to them, Well, my response is that every day we lose in letting people having as an alternative only to continue smoking or quitting is a lost day in public health. The second thing is that all the precursors to what you call epidemiological studies or long term studies is pretty clinical and short term clinical studies, and if you have very substantial reduction in exposure two toxicans, is very natural to assume you will have reduction in disease caused by these toxicons because the toxicans are known. If we do nothing, nobody will adopt this product. And you know that the subject is a bit complex, but it's not different from essentially trying to convince consumers to move from using fossive fuels to renewable energy. It's not that the renewable energies are proven to have zero impact on the environment. Actually they don't. They're must be better than vernicle or fossil fuels. And we do both the you know, the products and the regulatory measures to convince people who consume energy to switch to this alternative. So we're trying to apply an extreme precautionary principle here, but clearly there are also legitimate concerns. There are legitimate concerns that we need to minimize impact in undesirable audiences, particularly youth. Also people that have quit and because these products are better than cigarettes, maybe they will come back. That's why the regulatory framework has to be fair district on how you commercialize this product at all that is physible. This is not a reason not to allow these products on the markets and then deprived smokers forever from these products because they have their right also to be informed that these products exists what they are, but they are not because they still contain ecotiner addictives. They're not zero risks, but they're much better than cigarettes for the ones who would like to continue using nicotine products. Now people will come back and say, well, why don't you just get out of the damned cigarette industry entirely? Like when it comes to the rest of the industry, do you guys talk with or another? Do you talk to their CEOs or chairs? Do you guys lead? Are they just looking if you get too far out of head on shifting a harmyduction just to scoop up your market share? Uh? You know, are you better than all the other guys? You know, I mean British, American Tobacco, Japan Tobacco, Imperial, all those. What's the nature of industry at at at the executive the top level in terms of the movement of harmy option. Okay, clearly we have been leading in this domain for various reasons. Other companies in the industry where slower in entering this domain, and we can examine why. But the thing is, once these products start being available to consumers and consumers starts reaching to them, I don't think there is an option from a pure competitive point of view for other manufacturers not to enter the domain now to do these products. If you start today, you're not going to have a product tomorrow. It takes years to develop the products, and once you have a developed product, you believe it's just the ability to switch consumers. Then you need to do all your quick clinically clinical trials, and then after that you need to do the right market surveillance to avoid unintended audiences, but long term established epidemiology as well. So it's a big investment to make and it takes multiple years. We talk or as it took, maybe we're slow, but it took us six seven years to develop the first heated tobacco product and another three or four years to do the substantiation. So it's a ten year investment of multi billion dollars. Because these products because they have lower taxes and that's part of the regulatory UH framework, they also have higher margins that justify your investments. Then once we reach a sufficient critical massive smokers that have switched to these products, then do side measures or other regulatory interveneurs like up and trade or nicotine reduction as the Fday is discussing. So you've kind of further incentivize consumers to switch, but also manufacturers on a stick and currot base to start investing now because you know in ten years, fifteen years, the measures are going to be so drastic on the people that have not invested in these new products that it will be not sustainable from a business perspective. And what is important, sorry if I sound like a broken record, is that public health authorities and governments get aligned behind Haart reduction. Because if you're a manufacturer and you have very ambiguous views in your country about what this products should be authorized or not. In some countries they banned vapor products. In some countries they banned both in vapor products and heated tobacco products as precautionary principle, So that doesn't incentivize manufacturers around the world to invest heavily in this product. So having the governments and public health being aligned that yes, the best thing is to quit, but if you don't quit. Then the second best is to move to this products and create the right incentive. Says that stick and current. Yeah, sometimes get this sense and they tell me if it's wrong or not. That in the countries that are good on harm reduction, like the United Kingdom or maybe New Zealand, that in those countries, you know, you p M. I are willing to kind of really you know, be very non aggressive with selling your cigarettes, really to pull back and you know, not do anything that people would I mean they don't like you selling in the first place, but that you're not going to push it hard. Where's a country like Mexico which is banning basically all the harm reduction products, or certainly east cigarettes and heat not burn things. You know, it seems like you're more so I saw. I think you've got a letter from some of the harm reduction supportive scientists saying, you know, what do you do with Marlborough shuffle? There's a Marble shuffle. Some product you have in Mexico is a marketing campaign, especially attractive to young people. It's got these capsule things. It's actually to try different flavors. I mean, is there that sense that if a government is going to shut you out on harmonduction. You're just gonna be a little more of a bad boy when it comes to marketing cigarettes. Absolutely not. Uh. First of all, just to give a little bit of perspective here, um today, in the markets where we are present with this product, okay, or we can be present, and if you look at pre mind total, more than eighty percent of our commercial money marketing sales forces go behind this products, although we still represent a fraction of the pond, okay, So we put our money to our mouths. Secondly, uh, you know, it's not that if you are aggressive in marketing certain products, it's kind of retaliation with every governments, okay, becauseural governments don't care about these things. The second thing is in certain markets where I mean Mexico essentially banned the importable these products, okay, So the only thing is to continue the dialogue with the government to convince them that that was not the brightest idea they had. Okay. And on the other side, you need to do a minimum in the cigarette market where you have nothing else in order to maintain at least your market share. That where you're just from a shareholder's perspective, you move your market share to competitors. But we are not investing behind cigarettes, okay. And whenever a market is makes it possible for us to commercialize these products, we do commercialize, Okay. I would love Indonesia to finally adapt all the regulations necessary. Philippines were moving in the right direction and we started I link this products there, and I hope you mentioned in Mexico. You know, people in Mexico will see the opportunity in the government and take the right measures other than banning the products and condemning people to only smoke. But there is no we pro void the two okay, So let me press you harder. I mean, then we'll get more into the harmony duction stuff. And some of the other skeptics will say so when it comes to, for example, bands and tobacco advertising, that there was recently a referendum in Switzerland right where you live, you know, and I think that P might other companies opposed the Swiss referendum to ban virtually all tobacco advertising. Now was that because it was also a ban on noncombustibles or what was your why were we doing that? Correct? Not applies in general you know to all institutions, mightly to them is to follow different shade noncombustible products from combustible products, okay, or scientifically proven reduced risk products, let's call them. And then you can do whatever you want with cigarettes. In any case, in many countries, that is not much more that is available. Two you know prohibit So the reality is on cigarettes. You know, as I said, be my guests and do whatever they want. Right. But but but you're saying p m I. Now when it comes to you know, if governments want to increase taxes on cigarettes, bean advertising, limit where you can take it. At this point, p m I is not opposing those types of things anywhere, so long as it's focused on cigarettes and not on the noncombustibles. Is that right. Let's let's take one after that. When you talk about tobacco products or even words all nicotine products, and you apply all the same rules to all this products, then clearly your favorite cigarettes. Because the new categories various degrees are relatively unknown smoke, so you need some differentiating factors so you can explain to consumers what these products are. I'm not saying TV advertising or radio advertising or things like this, but the ability to contact people, the ability to them to try this product, I mean you have countries where you cannot offer a consumer the possibility to try a smoke free product by law. So how how is a smoker going to try this product and spend money to buy it if they can try it. So it's the minimum necessary to communicate with consumers. The second thing is you do need differentiated taxation between the two categories, because one is easy to market, is very well known. The other requires, as I said previously, a very significant investment in product development and scientific assessment priclin clinical. So we don't have the same spend by any measure between the two. I mean, if you want to create any cigarette, you just maximum you will do is adapt the geometry of the packaging and you have a new product in six months, and the others have horizons of four to eight years. So this has to be recognized. In terms of taxation. We've always said governments always increase excess taxes, and they will continue increasing both form for revenue reasons but also as a measure to diminished consumption. So they can increase. Always say don't do abrupt to one nots, have a plan and increase every year by the amount you want, and then this is perfect Okay, we know what's happening. If you have one of you have contraband, and then the legitimate sales go down and illegal products get the market. But what is more important is that they keep some differentiation between the smoke free category and the smoking right collects because the same thing we do for electric cars, they pay less taxes and so on. So I understand we're saying something that is unreasonable. Yeah, you know it makes sense. Let me ask you, what's your thoughts on these menthol bands or I think European Union did it? The US did it? Used to work? I think you first started working with p m I in Poland. Poland's one of the biggest consumers of mental aid in cigarettes. Are they a good idea? What do you think? Okay? First of all, the European Union did the band mental in cigarettes. The US has not yet bunned. Okay, so that's the first thing. Yes, I'm supporting the measure as a measure that when we have good availability of vapor product, executed tobacco products or pouches, that's a nice way to push consumers of menthol into the new categories. Just happen in the right time, Okay, I'll try bunning menthol without having smoke free alternatives. Essentially, what happened in the European Union is that the most smokers reached to normal cigarettes, I mean to non mental cigarettes. Okay, class you see some people buying mental and mental lating their packs because it's very easy. So I don't think we had the effect that we wanted to have, and we would have much better effect if it happened the way you describe, if alternatives were on the market, and then you give a very good chance to these new products to be adopted. But people didn't really quit. We'll be talking more after we hear this add Now, there's this other proposal that's been put for in the US in June of this year to basically reduce the level of nicotine and cigarettes to the point where they're almost not cigarettes anymore, and there's not cutting it by half. By cutting it by and the estimatest would save millions of lives. My senses, it might actually be the movement where we switched to a defective tobacco prohibition and launch cigarettes into the big leagues of major global drug trafficking. But what's your views on this reduced nicotine thing. Will there ever be a moment where this makes sense to do or is that just pushing on the supply side controls too far. The supply side controls, as I said, is measures you can take when you have good availability of alternatives to avoid what you just describe sitrate self nipotinization and so on. Okay, so people spike their cigarettes that have no nipotine with nicotine and so on. I think this has to be seen in the US in the context of the policy announced a few years ago by the Commissioner and reaches a lot of the head of tobacco in the FDA that they saw and dual strategy. The one is on one side, we may alternatives available that are scientifically proven and authorized, and on the other side, in the right moment, we reduced nicotine in cigarettes as a measure. It's not the only one, but that's the only one the FDA has under control. Now. If we talk about cup and trade and other measures of this nature, probably they are more effective. But the principle of allowing alternatives and then do the right regulatory measures at a certain stage to accelerate the phase out are rational regulations. The danger in general will take one side of the regulation and we forget the other. Okay. So to me, this is a measure that is a stick and currot measure. It's a phase out measure, and it has to be seen with other possible measures and not on its own, Okay. But the principle, I think it's clear from abiating myself, you need availability of this product, you need the right framework, and then eventually the phase out measures at the right moment, and that I'm fully supported. You know, part of this bi monthly conference call with a lot of the leading tobacco control experts who are sympathetic to harmonaduct share, and it's fair to say, you know, none of them fully trust you p m I. Big tobacco people vary in these things, but the one issue everybody's on is, you know, p m I is out there claiming that there's twelve and a half million adult smokers who have switched completely to icos from cigarettes and stopped smoking, not counting Russian Ukraine, so even more than that, And the question is how do you know? And they're asking you for data. You know, they say, if you're claiming what your market share is with icos and all this, there must be data, and you're not being transparent. You're not handing over the information. You're sending your people to meet with them, and you're saying, yes, we understand, blah blah blah blah blah, but that basically you're holding back on providing the formation that can really substantiate what you claim to be the powerful substitution effects for icons for people switching. So why why are you holding back? Why not be as totally transparent as possible in this stuffs of all we want to be transparent. Okay. The thing is, icons and vapor products are rather recent phenomenon. Okay, So in the cigarette market you have fluctuations over the last three years that are fairly big. You had covid or in some countries, you increase consumption the US, In some countries you had a decreasing consumption of cigarettes. In some countries you still have icons and vapor being a small part of the market five six p so, and you have price changes and touch change. So the data needs to be cleaned up from all this in order to be available to scientists to study, and the only way to do that is to have the right scientists with you. So you explain all the other influence in phenomena. Okay, it's a fact that we know from all the consumer surveys we're doing. We're gonna make available all the panel data that people who switched to icos. You know, if out of hundred people switch to who buy icos, I'm sorry about stay with icos and sixty problem with sevents which completely to and that you have the follow up of the consumers, you can say it's a bit bias data by the panel and that's a fact. On the other side, as the Icons in particular share is building up, clearly the data will become more visible. It's very visible. In Japan the category is at almost thirty percent of the market, so it's very visible. I think the visible cigarette sales as exactly. So you do you start seeing in Italy another market, So I think it's a question of time. But there's not a lack of transparency. The data is there. But if we make the effort to clean up the data from other factors, the data also can be used. But you need to take price increases, price changes, tax increases and the COVID period. So it's not something to take off the show and you give we need to do the analysis. That's all. Yeah, I understand, just just a little, you know, piece of advice or encouragement that for the people who are most sympathetic to your you know, what you're trying to do in terms of your transition and combustibles, being as transparent as possible to evidence would actually make a real difference. Now let me turn to the opposition to this thing, Mike Bloomberg, who has put hundreds of millions of dollars. Uh, you know, initially it was all about trying to fight smoking. He's still trying to fight smoking. I assume at this point you probably agree with a fair bit about what Bloomberg is doing to try to you know, restrict smoking, increased restrictions, all that sort of stuff. But meanwhile, he's adopted an aggressively anti tobacco harm reduction position, and he is a major funder of the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, which seems to have evolved from an anti smoking organization to a nicotine abstinence organization. He's then ambassador official ambassador World Health organization, which seems to be taking anti scientific positions and harm reduction. You know, what do you think striving these guys? Sometimes people act on ideology, sometimes on self interest. It's difficult for me to understand sometimes why people that used to be all harm reduction, all of a sudden, you know, they move the debate from comparing the smoke free products with cigarettes, which is the problem, to a zero risk product. So I guess it's ideology. I guess it's a bit of panic because when you don't have an enemy or the enemy is doing the right things. Uh, you know, some ngeo's think they're going to lose their purpose. Some of the audience remember that years ago we had head we called the value disease, so people that we're inhaling something and they had serious problems with the lens and eventually some of the people died, which is terrible. But this had nothing to do with invapor products. These were it was proven that were people that used I don't know, kind of be noise or legally produced THHC cartridges. So it has to be entirely about some knuckleheads putting vitamin e acetate into the th HC cartridges. But everybody blamed, you know, the vapors, the east cigarettes and nicotine cigarettes, and that's what's stuck in the public consciousness, and it really appeared that, you know that that the anti tobacco and anti harmonduction forces really took advantage of a broad public misperception in order to advance their agenda. I don't know if I'm just putting saying exactly what you were going to say there, but probably well model as you are saying correctly. And the question I ask is who is accountable for that? Because you know, after the peak of this crisis, unfortunate crisis even in Europe, in France and many other countries, who had six of the smokers, who started to believe that evapor products are equally bad or worse than cigarette, which I think is a public health disaster. So I've heard some people say that that, I mean, it makes sense to me in a way that you know, you guys probably still make more money from cigarettes than you do from all these harm reduction things, you know, and that you know it's basically a cash cow for big Tobacco that keeps selling cigarettes, and that Mike Bloomberg and w h O and Campaign Redaco Free Kids and all these anti harm reduction folks by virtue of putting out all these lies and blocking the adoption of harm reduction, that dave essentially become your biggest allies. That essentially you should be sent a thank you note to Mike Bloomberg at least for the short term, because he's helping post your cigarette sales. And in fact, it does appear that in some places cigarette sales have stopped going down because people no longer see the you know, East cigarettes and he not burn devices as as safer. What do you say, are they basically the factor your ally now in terms of short term profits. Factually, you are correct. By demonizing the better products. You know, you make people believe that cigarettes are the only alternative, and frankly speaking, yes, they help the people that want only to sell a cigarette, because it would be ideal if the World Health Organization was at least neutral on this product. Right, But it's the short term bottom line in terms of the profits of cigarettes, well, the profits of cigarettes, you know, as I said many times also to investors, the margin we make on these products, spoke for products is better than cigarettes. So we don't only have a model incentive. We have a financial incentive to sell these products, and they're better because we convinced the regulators around the world to give us better tax treatment than on cigarettes, and they understand that if you have a better product, you need to incentivize both manufacturers and consumers to switch to this product. Okay, so I think it makes sense to us not to sell cigarettes. Yeah. Yeah, But I mean you know what people also say, right is look what what what you pick tobacco or in p M I really wants is they want to evolve from a world in which a billion plus people are smoking cigarettes and a hundred million are using these harm reduction products, these reduced risk products, to a world in which two billion people are using the reduced risk products and only a hundred million people are smoking. And that's the way they'll sustain their profits. People will still be a to nicotine. Uh now, I mean personally, it seems to me that from a public health perspective, that's a major advance. But it's in fact that the objective here that imagining a world in which you know, you know, even more people are using these nicotine products and currently smoke, but we're the humutive harms the health or much lower. Is that is that the long term strategy. No, the long term strategy is to switch smokers, minimize initiation to any nicotine product and then continue diversifying the company into new domains or our revenues. I'm talking about Philip Morris, our competitors mm hmm, where we have other sources of revenue than nicotine products. And recently we want to harma companies because we have some expertise in oral and inhalation delivery, so we think we can repurpose certain existing drugs into fast delivery through in elation, so that we start moving away from pure nicotine in dependence. I don't think it's feasible, even in the wildest imagination of a tobacco company, to believe that we're going to increase the number of people we use nicotine products of the time. This is not Let me ask you why not. I mean, if you think about it, when tobacco came out of you know, the America's three years ago, it's sort of swept the world. I mean, it's basically I think it's only second only the coffee, maybe an alcohol. There's something incredibly compelling about it. People enjoy the drug effect of nicotine, and if you can turn nicotine into something that's barely more problematic or dangerous for people than coffee, why not. Why shouldn't we look forward to a world in which nicotine is sold in forms that are you know, safer than alcohol and almost as safe as coffee. It's just part of uman existence and human pleasure and human functioning. What's wrong with that? Why not have that as your objective? Is it just that you can't say it because it's not to say it? Well, Look, nicotine is addictive, okay, but the only form of addictiveness, as you're right, and the set of nicotine is through cigarettes that has all the toxic Now, people do not use nicotine products just for nicotine. They use them for the taste, They use them for the ritual, the same way you know, delivering an alcohol peel to people is not going to be as pleasurable as a glass of wine, I mean for the ones that consume wine. Okay, So there are many elements in the whole experience of a smoker that you cannot dissociate entirely. Yes, we can imagine a world where we have demonstrated that needs to be too demonstrated, that say, a nicotine pouch used with the right moderation, probably cause there's no disease, no premature deaths, and then we will have the debate whether these products can be made available in a different regulatory basis or not. But these products have to remain regulated as alcohol is regulated and so on. Now, the task we have is not to recruit new people. The task we have is to convince the existing smokers to move to this product. There will be people who start with nicotin products, and I think from a public health perspective, if they start, the best thing is that they will never start, and that is our advice. But if they start, they started with products that reduced there is from day one, not after thirty years. So I think we need to go step by step here in the public health debate, because we still have disagreement or whether for smokers that smoke for thirty years we make new products available. Once we resolved that debate, we can discuss about nicotine ten years down the line. Okay, that's but what about tetral medical value of nicotine? I mean, you know, you read some reports that how may be helpful, visit the Parkinson's, the Alzheimer's. I mean, why isn't there more scientific research on this front? And can you envision nicotine becoming a widely prescribed medical substance for all sorts of ills are and are you doing that kind of research? Clearly in the literature, there are some diseases you you just named them sterotypicalities Arkinson's where there's less prevalence and most people with nicotine. And we're doing some research in this area. Okay, but that is a limited number of diseases. Uh, that where nicotine or nicotine derivatives can be a therapeutical molecule. Okay, that's a medical product. So um, the problem we're facing today is, yes, there are certain uses of nicotine that could be therapeutical and have a positive effect. But as you said previously, the problem today is that we move the debate that nicotine is the cause of disease, and I think we need to clarify that debate. You said it yourself, isn't that nicotine and the FDA said it, Yes, it's addictive, but there's probably not certainly not the primary cause of disease. Let's just finish up with a few personal questions here. Andrea, I mean, I think you and I are I think we're born in the same year in nineteen fifty seven, but we've had very different you know, life trajectories. And I'm curious. You know, you started off as an engineer, you know, working on robotics, and then you left at age to join Philip Morris. And I'm curious when you made that decision back in the eighties to join a tobacco company. Did you have the qualms about going to work for big tobacco? Did you take some ship from your friends or family for doing that. We're already a smoker. I mean, how did you think about it back then? Well, you know, actually yeah, I started as an electrical engineer. Then one day it took the decision to take a Master in Business administration and changed my career orientation. And actually joining Philip Morris was purely accident. I had to go and do my military service in Greece after my MBA. The a lot change that didn't have to do, uh, and I looked for something last minute and I had some of us actually for the anecdote from companies like Motorola, let pick Western Young and but here comes to this company that offers me not an engineering related job to some degree, but you know, a job in business development and planning and finance, which over the areas I really wanted to learn. So I didn't have any issue with cigarettes. Did you smoke come from I used to smoke cigars then much more, Uh, but you know I come from Greece. At that point in time, there was not so much, you know, stigma on cigarettes. Yes, some friends asked me, why you join an industry that will disappear in the next ten years. Actually it never happened, but they didn't you're joining it? I mean they didn't. Actually, why are you joining an industry where you know, have the people use it are going to die? And you didn't get that kind of flak at you can not really? Yeah, I mean, look, the people have the choice and they can decide whether they smoke or not. It's a bit more complex than that, as we learn in reality, But there was you know, okay eighty five Now, okay, it's it's so many years ago. But also, when you enter a company, you realize that many of the things that the industry was accused were not real. Some of the things could have been done better, undeniable in the past. But that also gives you an opportunity to change things if you are within a company, and you know, once I became a bit more senior, in the company. It was rather obvious to being many others that the best contribution we can make is to change the product. And that's precisely what what we have done. The whole thing about harm aduction is it's something that kind of hits you or you began to appreciate a late nineties or early two thousand's Was there an aha moment for you to say we got to move in this direction? Was simply the fact the new technologies were emerging that made it possible. It's a combination of all that. It's uh, it was clearly you know, it was mid nineties. While I was in a position and many others of my generation, we always said, look, it's a combustion that is the problem. So we have the ability to change the product. Yes, the technology was not there yet, there was some first embryance of technology. Then, Philip Morris says, you know, it was the first company to publicly recognize that cigarettes are addictive in post disease. Once you recognize the impacts of your product, that's the first step to innovate against the product. I mean that applies to food, to applies to energy. The moment you say my product causes impacts, and many do in this plan on this planet. Then the next step is, okay, let's move it. And that gives you every reason tell your R and D that now is the time to do it in the technologist game, and we are lucky enough to have the products. Okay, but you need determination to do this, and you need also the acceptance of the impacts of your product. And that's something that too many CEOs. Is one thing I've learned that my advice, recognize the impacts of your product, whether you're in food, whether you're in whatever industry, because then you can tell you our and day we can do better, and then you have innovation that reduce the impacts of the products, which we oddly need on Earth. Let's take a break here and go to an ad oftentimes. If I mean, you look at the big auto companies, right, I mean, they just kept making the gasoline power cars forever and ever. They would look at electrical stuff, but they weren't pushing it hard. Until you get a Tesla coming along, and you know that's outside that basically wants to take down the big auto companies. And then they have competition from outside. And I wonder in terms of big tobacco. I mean there's a sense of yeah, we can do this, we'll do it our own pace, will make the transition slowly. But that was probably missing to some extent. Are there really the Tesla equivalents? I mean, Jewel was that until Altria brought a third of them? Right? Um? You know you have small companies like Enjoy that are pure plays on the East cigarettes. Um, but sometimes I wonder, you know, what you real actually really need to get you guys, not just pm I, but the other companies to really move faster is a company that was totally independent, had no commitment to cigarettes, that essentially wanted to take you guys out as competition, and that that's what's missing. Well, actually, I think who were the ones who disrupted this industry? Because we started the process of developing these products well before June. It was even a thought. Okay, So we started in two thousand and four to thousand five. H we build the R and D from zero. We had to hire people from the outside. Only joined this company, you know, because they believe these products have an important role to play in public health. They most came from Karma, So we created the infrastructure to do this and as of two thousand and eight nine we started really pushing this products. Was no jewel or the more evapor products, but vapor products we developed. Also, we knew that for existing smokers immediately they will have less ability to convert them fully than heat the tobacco products, not because of the nicotine, but also because of the taste characteristics that are important for the smoke. So I think we decided to disrupt our own industry on our own because also my thought and the thought of the senior executives on the board is if we don't do it, somebody else will do it. Okay, So we did it, and I think we opened the way for other companies to do the same. And you see much more products now than before. You guys, for a long time, you know, you have the network, distribution trains, the production, all that sort of stuff that made the big tobacco companies remain dominant for so long. Once you shift away from combustibles into these other types of devices, isn't there the potential from great a competition from companies that have not previously been involved in the tobacco nicotine field. Absolutely there is, and clearly for us is to remain at the forefront of the technological development and consumer service. I mean, we learned a lot with these new products. Because they have electronics. You need a completely different consumer journey. You need to open your own stores. You need to hand hold the people who buy your product for weeks and come back often to them so they don't fall back to cigarettes. It's very easy to develop a product convincing, you know, doing the scientific assessment and convincing people to use it. It takes some knowledge in some science. And for as long as you're at the forefront, you know, you remain competitive. You know, many people can do search engines like Google. Okay, it's not difficult to do a surgeon doing it well in every aspect. It takes a lot of note and I hope we have accumulated that knowledge and could continue building it every day, so we remain at the fall front. That's the ambition, right, Okay. And you say you're diversifying other industries and healing devices and stuff like this. I saw that you some years ago brought a little or brought into a smallest Raeli company, Sick Medical, which is developing a medical cannabis in healer. And I'm looking at the fact that like Altria. You know, it's already investing pretty substantially into alcohol deer companies investing into marijuana companies in Canada. What about p M. I are you guys looking at the at the whole cannabis field. Have you made any significant investments? And if not, why not? Yeah, Look, we've been looking at this and uh, I've got this question a number of times. So there are too if we look into the future, not the current situation. That is a situation in flux with everybody making claims about cannabies without any clinical, clinical, substantial proof. I mean, we made a commitment to be science based company, so we're not going out there and make, you know, promises to consumers that are not true. And we need to warn the consumers about this product, what the products are. And I'm not and that requires scientific analysis and research cannot be done just fly by night. So I gotta ask you this. I mean, you grew up in Grease, which has a long tradition of cannabises. Have you smoked marijuana? Have you enjoyed it? Do you Greece has a tradition of cannabis. Oh not not really, And I have to tell you I've never I have never smoked. Uh, so I'm not I don't have any expertise in this every you know, but it's practically legal and Switzerland any time in America, I'm happy to share a joint with you. I think you probably you know, you know, what is it important? Because I think about I've never liked cigarettes personally, um, but you know, in some places, whether in Europe or the US, people typically mix the hash or sometimes marijuana with cigarettes, right, And so I think it is important down the road that even though there's a consumer market for combining the two products, that there has to be some commitment that there will never be a marketing of cannabis combined with nicotine. I mean, is that something that you commit to down the road or you think the industry will commit to. Well, I'm not, I'm not an expert in this domain, but I think anhalation of something you burn is the worst form of delivering any substance. So I wouldn't recommend to anybody to burn something in order to deliver the substance. That's exactly what we're trying to move away. And so yes, I can make that commitment any time you want to not deliver when it comes to the harmy when it comes to the orals or the noncombustibles. I mean, and the thing I do worry about is it's pretty clear for people who's mukmarro waned occasionally that even smoking it, because it's you consume so little, it doesn't seem to present many harms to health, and it's sometimes the most efficient way to take it into your into your body. But the concern is if some of the noncombustible start to get mixed with cannabis in various forms, because then you can bind the sort of addictive potential of nicotine with a psychoactive, you know, appeal of of cannabis, and that could potentially be a new public health problem that I that I do worry about. Okay, so my last two questions quickly on one personal one bigger. On the personal level, I mean, you spent you know, virtually your entire adult life of Philip Moore as international. You know you've been a huge success there. When you look back, what do you regard as your greatest accomplishment and what do you regard as your greatest failure disappointment. I still believe my biggest accomplishment is the development of commercialization of this product, the smoke free products, And I think that's probably something I can be proud of. Failures I can enumerate a lot if we stay in this domain. You know why we have not done it earlier, why we've not done it faster. Um. You know, I learned one thing in managing companies that if you have to do something, do it now rather than wait beat. Concerning products or people, I didn't wait much, but probably should have pushed more. Having said that, I think I'm happy that we have this products, a bit disappointed that we don't still have the full backing of the public health community and regulators. That's something that you know, I will continue working on and that the whole management team is continue working on. And picture, I mean, do you think that this harm reduction future is inevitable, that this transition from combustibles to nonsmokables is inevitable? I hope so, and I think so. I think it's inevitable because existing smokers will be increasingly convinced to switch. Obviously, the most difficult group is the older people and lower socio economic strata. There you need a bit more positive approach from government to convince them but the encouraging thing also is that less young people use cigarette or start with cigarettes. So I think a world without cigarettes it's perfectly visible. At least I hope we're gonna see it. Not during my stay in Philip Morris, because it's not good to be that long anymore, but definitely I'm sure I'm going to see it during my lifetime. I have to say, I think I'm skeptic, you know. I think that if you look at how appealing cigarettes has been for so long, that we can see a major transition to the nonsmokables, but that there's going to still remain, you know, five percent of the world or whatever that just insists on taking it in that form, And if we ultimately move towards ultimate prohibition, we're going to see a vast black market, just like we've seen with heroin, cocaine, f amphetamine and cannabis. And they're talking about the future of a smoke free world is utopian, and sometimes they worry almost dangerous, because it may result in US ultimately embracing the sort of criminalizations and criminal justice prohibitions that generated the horrific global drug war we've had for many decades. I understand what you say. Look, I don't think my arm twisting only you're going to achieve this. It has to become organic. Uh. And the more companies work on things and convinced consumers, the less cigarettes are fashionable and better products for the ones as you said that one use nicotine and taste uh m hm, becomes the the better way of doing it, the most accepted way of doing it. I don't think we're an un twisting situation. What at an organic acceptance that these products are better now. If you ask me ten years around the world, they will be still security. Yes, they will be because there will be smokers that you will never convince not to smoke. But if you ask me twenty years, maybe we will be there. Yeah. Sometimes think about I think about all the governments that's signed onto prohibiting cannabis decades agoing there didn't even know what it was, and now they have very substantial cannabis using populations. I think there's an ebb and flowing consumer taste and that people inevitably come back to these things. But listen, I want to thank you for taking the time to talk with me. I really appreciate this frank conversation. I wish you, you know, all the best luck in making this transition out of combustibles and into the smoke free products as soon as possible. So thank you for the leadership you provided at the industry level in this and I hope it can happen even quicker than our opponents to harm reduction think is possible. Thank you anything, thank you for your time, and thank you for giving me the opportunity as well, and I hope we'll talk against. If you're enjoying Psychoactive, please tell your friends about it, or you can write us a review at Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. We love to hear from our listeners. If you'd like to share your own stories, comments and ideas, then leave us a message at one eight three three seven seven nine sixty that's eight three three psycho zero, or you can email us at Psychoactive at protozoa dot com or find me on Twitter at Ethan natal May. You can also find contact information in our show notes. Psychoactive is a production of I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. It's hosted by me Ethan Naedelman's produced by Noam Osband and Josh Stain. The executive producers are Dylan Golden, Ari Handel, Elizabeth Geesus and Darren Aronofsky from Protozoa Pictures, Alex Williams and Matt Frederick from My Heart Radio, and me Ethan Nadelman. Our music is by Ari Blucien and a special thanks to A Brio s F. Bianca Grimshaw and Robert BP. Next week we'll be talking about the Mary Pranksters, the Grateful Dead, and the psychedelics revolution of the nineteen sixties with Mountain Girl Garcia. These were nice parties, you know, where we looked after people. We made sure people didn't get lost on the way to the parking lot. The whole point was to introduce people to a rather weak solution of LSD in these jugs of kool aid, and so they wouldn't get they wouldn't get overload it. But if that turned out to be super fun, subscribe to Cycoactive now see it, don't miss it.