UltraSmooth cigarettes had been test-marketed in three areas for three years
Jump to full article: Richmond (VA) Times-Dispatch, 2008-06-24
Author: JOHN REID BLACKWELL TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Intro: Philip Morris USA has ended its three-year test market of a specially filtered cigarette, underscoring the difficulties that cigarette makers face in winning consumers to unconventional smokes.
But it likely won't be Philip Morris USA's last attempt to offer smokers a new product, as the company battles for a larger share of an ever-shrinking domestic cigarette market.
The Henrico County-based tobacco company said yesterday that it has stopped shipping Marlboro UltraSmooth to stores in Atlanta, Salt Lake City and Tampa, Fla., where the carbon-filtered cigarette has been sold since 2005. . . .
Carbon filters have been used on some cigarettes to potentially reduce some of the toxins in smoke, but health experts are skeptical of the benefits to smokers. Philip Morris USA did not claim that Marlboro UltraSmooth was a reduced-risk product, but the company's research has focused on that area for years.
Jump to full article » |