FOR THE PUBLIC:
Dr. Alexander Spears, Lorillard Tobacco, 1994
In a first step toward regulating tobacco, FDA chairman David Kessler charged in late February that tobacco companies control the amount of nicotine in cigarettes. Cigarette makers replied that everyone knows some brands have more nicotine and tar than others. But when ABC reported that some cigarettes were “spiked” with extra nicotine to hook smokers, tobacco companies explained that nicotine was taken out during processing - for smoothness - and reinjected. FDA officials said any reapportionment of nicotine constituted manipulation. Philip Morris filed a $10 million libel suit against ABC.
William Campbell, CEO of Philip Morris, 1994
Tobacco companies continue to deny that nicotine is addictive as they defend lawsuits over smokers’ deaths. The most famous was brought in 1983 by the family of Rose Cippollone. Soon after, Philip Morris quashed its nicotine studies. James Johnston of RJR Tobacco told a House panel that calling nicotine addictive meant “characterizing virtually any enjoyable activity as addictive, whether it is eating sweets, drinking coffee, playing video games or watching TV.” “You and I know that Twinkies don’t kill a single American a year,” Rep. Henry Waxman responded. “The difference between cigarettes and Twinkies … is death.”
Walker Merryman, Tobacco Institute spokesman, 1994
The risks of cigarette smoking present an uncomfortable problem for the tobacco interests - and a sticky point for the FDA in its current attack. If the agency actually succeeds in classifying tobacco as a drug, the FDA charter will logically demand a ban on cigarettes, since science has linked them to cancer and heart disease. A smoking ban would not only be unpopular; it would likely ruin the economies of Southern states. Insiders suspect Kessler is jockeying for a compromise to regulate tobacco in the future. “If cigarettes are too dangerous to be sold, ban them,” Johnston challenged in his April testimony.
BEHIND THE SCENES
Spears, 1981
In April Rep. Henry Waxman, who chairs the House subcommittee on health and environment, produced a 1981 study by Spears - then a researcher at Lorillard - indicating, Waxman claims, that companies have long manipulated nicotine levels independently of tar content. (Spears says Waxman misunderstands his work.) Then this month Kessler publicized the creation of “Y-1,” a genetically altered tobacco plant with twice the nicotine content than occurs naturally. Brown & Williamson said the plant was used only as “a blending tool” to provide consistent nicotine levels in cigarettes that often happened to be low-nicotine. Consistency in nicotine, the companies say, is controlled not to provide a kick but for taste.
Philip Morris internal memo, 1972
Some documents that came to light this month are so contrary to tobacco-company testimony that the Justice Department is investigating whether the executives obstructed Congress. One 1963 Brown & Willamson memo read, “We are, then, in the business of selling nicotine, an addictive drug.” Another details a 1976 study called Project Wheat, which tested that a smoker’s “inner need level is related to his preferred nicotine delivery.” About two years later a high-nicotine brand was on the market. Last week Brown & Williamson CEO Thomas Sandefur said he hasn’t read the studies.
Brown & Williamson’s research director in a letter to the Tobacco Institute, 1965
That statement is based on a set of experiments on mice called Project Janus, conducted over 13 years by Brown & Williamson’s parent company. In the studies, the mice were induced to inhale smoke; nicotine painted on their backs produced tumors. Brown & Williamson spent the next few years discussing the possibility of safer nicotine substitutes - in tobacco-company parlance, cigarettes with “reduced mouse-skin activity” - but eventually gave up. If Kessler’s FDA and Waxman’s committee are successful in gaining regulatory control of tobacco, they’ll likely push for lower nicotine levels and demand that the companies resurrect the search for a safer cigarette.
