Philip Morris Wants FDA Backing for Selling ’Less Risky’ Smokeless Tobacco

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should draft regulations that rank tobacco products on a “continuum of risk” and advise smokers to switch to smokeless-tobacco products to reduce the harm of tobacco use, according to tobacco company Philip Morris.

The Wall Street Journal reported Jan. 6 that Philip Morris and U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Co., both parts of the Altria Group Inc., wrote to the FDA touting the plan as having “a significant public-health benefit.”

Altria officials said that the regulatory proposal should be based on science and evidence, but Matthew Myers of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids cast the letter as an attempt to weaken the new FDA tobacco-regulation law, which Myers said requires a high standard to be met before health claims can be made about tobacco products.

Tobacco firm R.J. Reynolds made similar comments in its own letter to FDA, submitted as the agency gathers public comments ahead of drafting its tobacco regulations. Both firms now sell both cigarettes and smokeless products. “What Altria would like, and I think Reynolds would like, is an endorsement by the government that smokeless-tobacco products do indeed have significantly less risk,” said industry analyst David Adelman of Morgan Stanley. “That could be a real boon to the category.”