Philip Mor­ris In­ter­na­tion­al (PMI) has ex­pressed con­cern that reg­u­la­tions cur­rent­ly in place to have on­ly one cig­a­rette dis­penser in es­tab­lish­ments may do more harm than good and fu­el the il­le­gal cig­a­rette trade.

The To­bac­co Con­trol Unit has en­forced the pro­hi­bi­tion to all ven­dors from hav­ing more than one cig­a­rette dis­penser in their busi­ness.

“While PMI sup­ports all gov­ern­ments in their ef­forts to reg­u­late the in­dus­try and re­duce cig­a­rette con­sump­tion, we ac­knowl­edge that this ini­tia­tive may push con­sumers away from those re­tail out­lets, which com­mer­cial­ize le­git­i­mate prod­ucts, abide by the reg­u­la­tions and con­tribute to the econ­o­my”, Shel­don Wood, PMI Gen­er­al Man­ag­er for Trinidad & To­ba­go, stat­ed.

“This ini­tia­tive may in­crease il­lic­it trade in cig­a­rettes since con­sumers may pre­fer par­al­lel re­tail out­lets that do not ad­here to the law. Time is a valu­able re­source, and most con­sumers will choose not to spend it in long lines in a su­per­mar­ket where on­ly one check­out has a dis­penser. Since il­lic­it trade evades tax­a­tion, reg­u­la­tions, and health warn­ings, it is pos­si­ble this law en­force­ment may have a neg­a­tive im­pact in tax rev­enues and pub­lic health.”, Wood added.

PMI´s con­cerns co­in­cide with the ones is­sued by the Su­per­mar­kets As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (SATT), who stat­ed that while this plan has im­pli­ca­tions to frus­trate the sale to con­sumers, it may in­crease par­al­lel trade with road­side ven­dors.

SATT al­so stat­ed that its mem­bers are con­sid­er­ing com­ing out of the busi­ness of sell­ing cig­a­rettes al­to­geth­er if this con­tin­ues. This may force con­sumers to switch to il­lic­it prod­ucts. Oth­er com­pa­nies with­in the in­dus­try have shown the same con­cerns.

PMI al­so ex­pressed the need to rec­on­cile the ‘’One-Dis­penser per Out­let’’ pol­i­cy with the prin­ci­ples of fair trade, as reg­u­lat­ed by the Fair-Trad­ing Com­mis­sion. ‘’The re­stric­tion of on­ly one cig­a­rette dis­penser per out­let cre­ates ex­treme com­mer­cial re­stric­tions and may give rise to an­ti-com­pet­i­tive prac­tices’’ ex­plained Wood.

De­spite these wor­ries, PMI rec­om­mends all its clients to ad­here to the pro­vi­sions of the law. It al­so rec­om­mends to all adult smok­ers to stay away from il­lic­it prod­ucts. As of Sep­tem­ber 26th, the new Graph­i­cal Health Warn­ings have been ap­plied on all le­git­i­mate cig­a­rette packs, which al­low adult smok­ers to dis­tin­guish them from the il­lic­it ones.

PMI is a one of the lead­ing in­ter­na­tion­al to­bac­co com­pa­ny en­gaged in the man­u­fac­tur­ing and sale of cig­a­rettes, as well as smoke-free prod­ucts, and oth­er nico­tine-con­tain­ing prod­ucts.

Its dis­trib­u­tor is Mi­con Mar­ket­ing Lim­it­ed.