with a 45 percent share of the domestic market, and tobacco remains the largest contributor (69 percent) to the company's operating profits (Barrett, 1993, p. 317).
The domestic tobacco industry is beset with challenges to its advertising practices, health claims against its products, and legal and quasi-legal restrictions on its activities (Skolnick, 1993, pp. 1353-1355). Each of these factors affect the ways in which the industry competitors market products in the United States. In many foreign markets, these factors do not pose serious challenges to the marketing of tobacco products. In some foreign markets, however, such as the European Community, market challenges to tobacco products are developing along similar lines to those in the domestic market of the United States.
The health issue surrounding the use of tobacco products is the most marketing challenge facing Philip Morris in the United States. Smoking tobacco, particularly in the form of cigarettes, creates a risk of sudden cardiac arrest for smokers three times higher than the comparable risk for a non-smoker (Koop, 1988, p. 1). Approximately 85 percent of all lung cancers in the United States are caused by smoking tobacco; persons smoking two packs of cigarettes per day have a lung cancer rate 25 times that of the non-smoker (Koop, 1988, p. 1). Cigarette smoking is the major cause of chronic obstructive lung disease--emphysema is common among older persons who have smoked, while it is rarely found among older non-smokers (Koop, 1988, p. 1). Premature delivery, spontaneous abortion, and stillbirth risks are magnified for the pregnant woman who smokes, when compared to risks for non-smoking pregnant women (K
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