Irwin, W. D. E.
Thank you to Kirsten Neilsen for passing on information about this document.
These notes from a British American Tobacco (BAT) company scientist (D. Irwin) discuss "ROOT Technology," a tobacco industry term for enhancing nicotine delivery to smokers by adding ammonia-based compounds to tobacco.
In 1994 in the United States, an ABC News Day One segment accused tobacco companies of "spiking" their cigarettes by adding nicotine. The accusation only slightly missed the mark. The tobacco companies' technology is aimed at putting more of the nicotine that already exists in a cigarette into vapor form (also called "free nicotine"), where it is more rapidly absorbed by the smoker. As D. Irwin put it in a different BAT memo (from 1994) ,
"I need hardly point out that adding substances to tobacco that lead to more of the tobacco nicotine ending up in smoke is very close to nicotine fortification." http://www.library.ucsf.edu/tobacco/batco/html/400/482/
Today's document states, "Ammonia increases impact because it increases smoke pH which enhances impact."
Even more interesting, however, is the question Irwin poses in this memo about another cigarette additive: Urea.
"Would disclosure of urea as a tobacco additive have a negative effect on consumer perception given that it is a constituent of urine?"