Challenges and Opportunities in the Tobacco Industry

2020 was a challenging year for the tobacco industry, with the onset of COVID-19, taxes on reduced-risk products, and the raising of the legal age of smoking from 18 to 21 in the US, signed in December of 2019. Increasing concerns on health and wellbeing associated with the coronavirus are likely to encourage governments to adopt new restrictions on tobacco use and expand smoke-free areas to other public places. These restrictions are likely not just to impact combustible cigarettes, but reduced-risk products as well.