Country Overview
Key Facts
Number of Employees: Approximately 900
Main Brands:
Boston, Caribe, Green, Derby, Marlboro, Pielroja, American Gold, L&M
Welcome to Coltabaco, Philip Morris International’s (PMI) affiliate in Colombia. Our business was established in 1919 and became part of PMI in 2005. We are the biggest tobacco company in Colombia. We buy over 35% of Colombia’s tobacco leaf production; have a stemmery in Barranquilla, offices in 31 cities, and a production facility in Medellín. In total we employ around 900 people.
Coltabaco supports the local communities in which we live and work. Through different projects like Dividendo for Colombia, Coltabaco developed Sembrando Futuro to meet the basic education needs of children who live in rural tobacco-growing areas. Today, more than 4.000 children from 127 rural schools in 7 tobacco growing municipalities benefit from this assistance.
Smoking and Health
Tobacco products, including cigarettes, are dangerous and addictive. There is overwhelming medical and scientific evidence that smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and other serious diseases.
Addiction
All tobacco products are addictive. It can be very difficult to quit smoking, but this should not deter smokers who want to quit from trying to do so.
Secondhand Smoke
Public health officials have concluded that secondhand smoke from cigarettes causes serious diseases in non-smokers, including lung cancer and heart disease. We believe the public health conclusions on secondhand smoke are sufficient to support smoking restrictions in public places.
Effective Regulation
Philip Morris International (PMI) supports comprehensive regulation of tobacco products based on the principle of harm reduction.
To be effective, tobacco regulatory policy must be evidence-based, apply to all tobacco products, and should take into account the views of all legitimate stakeholders including public health authorities, government finance authorities, tobacco manufacturers, and other members of the tobacco supply chain. Regulatory policy must consider the potential to trigger adverse consequences which undermine public health objectives, such as increasing the demand for illicit cigarettes.
While we support comprehensive, effective tobacco regulation, we do not support regulation that prevents adults from buying and using tobacco products or that imposes unnecessary impediments to the operation of the legitimate tobacco market. In that regard, we oppose measures such as generic packaging, point of sale display bans, total bans on communications to adult consumers, and bans on the use of all ingredients in tobacco products.