Tobacco Documents Online

This 1973 R.J. Reynolds Research and Development (R&D) document indicates a chemical change that took place in cigarettes around that time.

RJR chemically analyzed competing brands of cigarettes that were excelling in sales to see how they differed from RJR's products. They found that the smoke from these other products (specifically Marlboro and Kool) was more alkaline, and that this caused more of the nicotine to go into "free" form (vapor form), "which is volatile, rapidly absorbed by the smoker and believe to be instantly perceived as nicotine 'kick.' "

RJR correlated these differences in smoke pH with improved market performance (higher sales) of these brands, saying

"Our preliminary correlactions strongly suggest that... the vigorous, sustained growth in sales of Marlboro (and other Philip Morris brands) and Kool correlates closely with the increased smoke pH, hence increased 'free' nicotine and nicotine impact of those brands."

The name for this chemical process is "free basing," the same term also used to describe the process of changing cocaine into "crack," a form of cocaine that is smoked and gives a more rapid, intense onset than snorting.

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?"