Tobacco Documents Online

:1 THE TOBACCO INSTITUTE 1875 I STREET, NORTHWEST WASHINGTON, DC 20006 202; 457-4800 • f300%424-9£S76 February 17, 1982 MEMORANDUM TO: Arthur J. Stevens FROM: George E. Schafer and Marvin A. Kastenbaum Subject: "The Changing Cigarette" The work group on "Future Strategies for the Changing Cigarette" would feel. little need to define the term "changing cigarette". After all, many members of this group were respon- sible for producing the 252-page, 1981 Surgeon General's Report that bears the title "The Changing Cigarette" (See attached cover page). Among the future strategies proposed in the report of this work group are many concepts alluded to earlier in the 1981 report on the health consequencs of smoking. The premises from which the strategies evolve are that cigarettes today are different entities from those implicated as health hazards twenty years ago. Whatever modifications may have been intro- duced into the product to reduce the 'tar' and nicotine levels, have at the same time altered the levels, and thereby the effects of the remaining constituents. Moreover, new and perhaps un- revealed ingredients and additives have been introduced thereby compounding the hazards of today's cigarettes. The work group suggests that the effects of all these innovations must be monitored continually so that the public is adequately informed of the additional burden of risk it can be expected to bear. To this end a federally-funded, national center should be established so that these anticipated hazards may be properly assessed and reported. We do not accept the premises from which the strategies have evolved, nor do we agree that their implementation will necessarily be remedial. If so-called "cigarette-related" diseases take twenty years or more to develop, continual changes in the level and constituency of the components would make the reputed deleterious effects very difficult to assess. w ~ 'a /ls cc: • Samuel D. Chilcote, Jr. ~ C11 Fred Panzer GD tJ