In the 20th century, Big Tobacco got up to some really grim stuff. Camel claimed their brand was preferred among doctors, Lucky Strike marketed cigarettes as a weight loss aid, and multiple brands promoted “light” versions of their products as healthier, despite knowing they weren’t.
In the modern upside-down world of tobacco control, Philip Morris Italia is now facing a €7 million fine for potentially confusing customers by calling “smoke-free” products “smoke-free”.
Let’s try to figure out what’s going on.
The case
In October, 2025, the Italian Ministry of Health issued a formal report to AGCM, which is Italy’s competition authority. The report cited potential misleading claims in PMI’s promotion of “smoke-free” products. From there, the AGCM opened an investigation into Philip Morris Italia’s communications and marketing strategy for the combustion‑free products:
- IQOS (heated tobacco)
- VEEV (vapes)
- ZYN (nicotine pouches).
The report resulted in an effective raid by the AGCM and a special unit of the Guardia di Finanza on Philip Morris Italia’s office and manufacturing facility in Bologna in the bid to find internal communication on the “smoke-free” products. Then, earlier this month, the investigation imposed a €7 million fine for misleading commercial practices. PMI has said it will appeal.
What is the AGCM’s reasoning?
The AGCM’s unfair commercial practices claim hinges on PMI using three phrases in its marketing. They are:
- “smoke-free”
- “moke-free products”
- "building/designing/accelerating a smoke-free future".
The thinking here is that these phrases position these products as being safer than cigarettes. They suggest that these phrases go beyond a merely factual statement that the products don’t contain smoke, and instead imply non-harmfulness or reduced harmfulness. AGCM classifies this conduct as a misleading and therefore unfair commercial practice under Italian consumer‑protection law.
The AGCM goes on to state that scientific and clinical evidence does not support the claim that these products are harmless or less harmful. They add that vulnerable populations (such as minors) could be tricked into believing that “smoke-free” means risk-free.
Why PMI should win at appeal
There are several reasons why this decision is a joke, unbefitting of a government office. Here are a few of them.
Language games
Tobacco control is fond of mangling and distorting language to fit their paranoid priors. Their attempt to massage the phrase “smoke-free” into an explicit health claim is undermined by the fact that it is a technical descriptor of products that are non-combustible and do not produce smoke.
For example, the EU Tobacco Products Directive already makes a distinction between combustible and non-combustible or “smokeless” products. In other words, regulators recognise a material distinction between combustion and non‑combustion products. The idea that a manufacturer is not allowed to do the same when marketing a product is absurd.
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32014L0040
The average consumer
The suggestion that the average consumer will read “smoke-free” as “risk-free” is laughable. Even in the report, AGCM constantly conflates less harmful and harmless in their sentences, knowing full well that including less harmful on its own would demolish their argument.
Because tobacco control groups (deliberately) misunderstand the distinction between safer and safe, they assume that consumers do too. Instead, survey after survey shows that the general public is misinformed about the relative risks of vapes and pouches vs combustible cigarettes.
Any good consumer law case needs plausible evidence that consumers are interpreting smoke-free to mean risk-free. Loose, paranoid public health concerns about what they may think just won’t cut it.
Youth use concerns and warning labels
Fretting about "vulnerable populations” such as minors ignores the fact that these products are illegal for them to buy. Additionally, per EU law, all smoke-free products must contain clear health warnings covering 30% of the packet's surface.
Italian health warnings on these products underline risk and addiction. However, we’re meant to believe that consumers will interpret “smoke-free” to mean risk-free, but they’ll just ignore these labels? Please.
Scientific and clinical data
The final and most objectionably egregious part of this lawsuit is that AGCM claims the evidence “does not support” the idea that non‑combustion products are less harmful than cigarettes. All three smoke-free PMI products contain substantially lower toxicants.
The FDA on the relative risks of tobacco products explains it simply:
If all four products (combustible cigarettes, heated nicotine, vapes, and nicotine pouches) came out today, we’d be able to know which one was the most corrosive to health from biomarkers alone. The fact that the AGCM has collapsed the difference between safe and safer, a tactic employed by the densest or most duplicitous tobacco control activists, must fatally harm their case.
Final thoughts
AGCM has stepped well beyond its remit as a consumer and competition authority. Now, it’s acting as if it’s a de facto health policy regulator that is changing definitions on the spot. No business can be expected to keep up with the whims or imaginative interpretations of a regulator who interprets terms in bad faith and then imposes fines after the fact.
