peter.christopher@guardian.co.tt
Philip Morris International (PMI)’s brands is set in the new year to reveal the new graphical health warning on its cigarette brands in Trinidad & Tobago (L&M and Marlboro).
Country Manager of PMI in Trinidad and Tobago, Sheldon Wood said the transition, which is part of the Ministry of Health and Tobacco Control Unit guidelines, will begin for the company’s products in January.
The deadline to transition all cigarette brands sold in Trinidad and Tobago to the required graphical health warnings is March 24, 2022.
“We’ve worked closely with the Tobacco Control Unit, in making sure that our packs with these new images will meet the requirements,” he said.
Wood added that the transition of the packs in the market for the Trinidad and Tobago Business is going to be transitioning effectively from January, the first week of January, so all the trade partners and all consumers will see these new graphic images on the packs of LLM and Marlboro products.
Wood said the initiative is meant to reduce to consumption of tobacco cigarettes, which PMI fully supports.
“We are looking towards smoke free future, where we see that the global business of consuming combustible tobacco cigarettes actually reduces and that there will be less riskier and reduced risk products as alternatives for people who made that conscious decision to continue consuming tobacco and smoking,” he said.
There is also a benefit to the new warning image as it should assist in identifying and stamping out the illicit trade of cigarettes.
He said, “It’s going to help the industry as far as we are concerned with respect to illicit trade, because what’s going to happen is that packs that are illicit are not going to be in conformation of these new regulations and these requirements for the Ministry of Health’s Tobacco Control Unit. So as a result, we see that illicit trade is willing to have to deal with this, we expect that the ministry and the officials are now going to easily be able to identify packs that are illicit, and they will be able to seize them and take the relevant actions.”