Could Phillip Morris Stop Making Cigarettes?

According to a report from Sky News, Phillip Morris, one of the biggest cigarette makers in the world, is promising to stop making cigarettes.

A statement like that will raise some eyebrows, but they say they're serious. Now, the decision is probably not as altruistic as it sounds. In the report, it says smoking in the UK is down from over 20% to 15% among adults.

Now, here's the other part of the report. Phillip Morris, which makes popular brands like Marlboro, is working on an alternative cigarette. It's not vaping (which appears to be a better alternative to some medical types), and no one is really sure if it's really that much safer, because there's really no hard research on this new process.

The process? Sky News says rather than burning the tobacco, the idea is to heat it up. Since heated tobacco is at a lower temperature than burned tobacco, it lowers the levels of dangerous chemicals up to 95%.

Does this make tobacco any less deadly or nicotine any less addictive? Possibly, but as the reports says, the question is, is Phillip Morris simply trying to squeeze a few more dollars out of a dying habit, and their biggest profit centers are lower economic countries. It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out.