Will the e-cigarette kill off the business that kills millions every year?
When it comes to corporate evil there is one perfectly legal industry that towers above the rest. It will kill at least 50 people by the time you finish reading this article. It is hard to top the financial sector for pure greed, and the arms industry has long profited from pain, suffering and death, but it is the tobacco giants that have formed the perfect alliance between greed and death and wrapped it in a fog of Sweet Afton smoke.
According to the World Health Organisation more than five million people die every year from smoking-related illnesses – about 10 people a minute – but despite this grim statistic, 25 per cent of Irish adults – or close to one million people – still smoke and the tobacco industry profits handsomely from their addiction.
But over the last couple of years, that industry has been looking nervously over its should at a new technology which has the potential to hit their business hard. Electronic cigarettes. Last Tuesday morning analysts at investment bank Canaccord Genuity caused a ripple of newspaper headlines when they downgraded their recommendations on British American Tobacco and Imperial Tobacco because of the impact they think electronic cigarettes will have on the sector.
Source: Conor Pope, Irish Times, 15/07/2013
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