E-cigarette makers under fire for marketing to young people

Philip Morris International, the world’s biggest cigarette company which is seeking to diversify into non-combustible tobacco products, has suspended a global social media marketing campaign following a Reuters investigation into the company’s use of young online “influencers” to sell its new IQOS “heated tobacco” device.

The company’s own marketing code of conduct rules out promotions involving youth oriented celebrities or “models who are or appear to be under the age of 25.” But Reuters found that paid “IQOS ambassadors” in several countries were “rail thin young women who revel in the high life.”

The suspension of Philip Morris’ campaign came as another e-cigarette company, JUUL, was targeted in a lawsuit by the US state of North Carolina over marketing and products that the state claims …