Philip Morris
Substitutes for Cigarettes
Fields
- Author
- Weisberg, P.S.
- Document File
- 2023718923/2023719044/General Counsel Washington, D.C., Office
- Type
- MEMO, MEMORANDUM
- REPT, REPORT, OTHER
- Area
- BRING,MURRAY/CARLSTADT
- Characteristic
- ATTY, ATTORNEY WORK PRODUCT
- CONF, CONFIDENTIAL
- Named Organization
- Howard Hughes Foundation
- Natl Library of Medicine
- Robert Johnson Foundation
- Rockefeller Foundation
- Scripps Foundation
- Univ of Ca San Diego
- Wickham + Associates
- Duke Univ
- Natl Library of Medicine
- Site
- N327
- Master ID
- 2023718935/8940
Related Documents: - Request
- Stmn/R1-004
- Stmn/R1-032
- Stmn/R1-061
- Stmn/R1-071
- Stmn/R1-072
- Stmn/R1-087
- Stmn/R1-088
- Stmn/R1-032
- Named Person
- Weingarten, V.
- Alzheimer
- Knorr, G.
- Parkinson
- Porter, L.
- Schuckit, M.
- Alzheimer
- Litigation
- Stmn/Produced
- Author (Organization)
- Wickham + Associates
- Recipient
- Wickham, D.W.
- Recipient (Organization)
- Wickham + Associates
- Date Loaded
- 05 Jun 1998
- UCSF Legacy ID
- onk98e00
Document Images
WICKHAM & A88OCIATE$
ATTORNEYS AND COUNSELORS AT LAW
SUITE 600
DALE W. WICKHAM 2300 N STREET, N.W.
COUNSEL
EDWARD O. CRAFT
FRANCIS A. LAVELLE'
ALVIN J. GESKE
DONALD T WILLIAMSON
'ADMITTED ONLY IN ILLINOIS
AND MASSACHUSETTS
WA $ H 1 N C3 TO N, D. C. 20037
(202) 663-9060
CABLE:WICKLAW
M E M O R A N D II M
ECONOMIC CONSULTANT
GERARD M. BRANNON, PH.D.
June 28, 1988
PRIVILEGED & CONFIDENTIAL
To: Dale W. Wickham, Esq.
From: Paul S. Weisberg, M.D.
Re: Substitutes For Cigarettes
The Task
Wickham and Associates has been asked by Mr. Gene Knorr,
Staff V.P. of Philip Morris, Inc. to develop a strategy for the
Company through which non-toxic substitutes for cigarettes could
be identified, developed and marketed. These substitutes should
replace toxic tar droplets as vehicles of nicotine delivery to
the lungs with substances which function similarly but are
chemically inert when heated, and should replace nicotine with
substances which produce similar effects without nicotine's
cardiovascular and irritant effects. The strategy would involve
funding by the Company of a large research effort by an eminent
medical institution or institutions. It would have the
anticipated effect of shifting the public image of the Company
away from that of a merchant of death toward more socially
adaptive roles, and would thereby legitimize the Company's
standing from a public policy standpoint.
Cigarette Smoking: The Positive Effects
Cigarettes enhance certain physiological reactions, and
fulfill certain social and psychological needs. These positive
attributes should be emulated or preserved in any substitutive
product. Cigarettes simultaneously induce a heightened state of
energy and attention, while providing a sense of calm and
relaxation in the user. They compensate for ungratified oral
needs, and supply activity for the hands which binds aggressive
energy. They stimulate intestinal peristalsis, and thereby
diminish constipation. They appear to aid in the treatment of
Parkinson's disease. They serve a communal social function,

' WICKHAM & ASSOCIATES
ATTORNEYS AND COUNSELORS AT LAW
oppose depression, and (mildly) enhance courage. Most if not all
of these effects stem from the actions of nicotine; specifically,
they are connected with the modulating effects of the brain's
nicotine receptors.
Brain Receptors
Brain receptors are being studied intensively at numerous
academic centers. These receptors are molecule-specific, act at
infinitesimally low concentrations of external stimulus; and
serve a biological function of adapting the organism to changes
in external circumstances. Typically, a continuing external
stimulus which is not immediately noxious, and which furthers the
overall adaptation of the organism, leads to a long term increase
in receptor density associated with "up-regulation", a
heightening of reactivity to, or reliance on the stimulus
molecule in modulating function. As an example, nicotine
increases the density of the nicotine receptors so that certain
energy functions come to be preferentially performed using
nicotine's high-energy bonds. This state is termed habituation.
Similar mechanisms operate for many other substances. In some
cases, receptors are so modified in their numbers and perhaps
functions, that certain energy reactions can only occur in the
presence of the external stimulus: A state of addiction then
exists.
At a certain level, frequency, or persistence of either
added external stimulus or a changed internal environment, the
receptors' function is changed, inducing or permitting a
disorganization or other threshold-exceeding event, short or long
term, that releases or uncouples energy from the organismic
system. Examples of this latter event system include cancer,
seizures, and sexual orgasm.
The nicotine receptor appears either to be multiple, or to
have a double action, both a stimulating of brain function
through enhancement of high energy (cholinergic) phosphorus
bonds, and a calming, relaxing effect similar to that noted with
gamma amino butyric acid (GABA), for which there is also a known
receptor, or with certain (beta) endorphins, naturally produced
compounds often termed "Natural Opiates". Psychic energizers,
compounds currently under development which act to offset the
cholinergic functional deficiency noted in Alzheimer's Disease,
would appear to have much in common with the activating principle
in nicotine, while GABA and the beta endorphins would appear to
have much in common with nicotine's calming principle. Taken
together, these may substitute for the major positive effects of
nicotine, without nicotine's adverse cardiovascular and irritant
effects.
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WICKHAM & ASSOCIATES
ATTORNEYS AND COUNSELORS AT LAW
Cloning is no longer a new technology. Research efforts
should be applied to the identification and development of an
agricultural product (perhaps a form of cellulose) which is
chemically inert when heated to a liquid-gaseous phase, and which
could be cloned with energizing and calming compounds that up-
regulated identified brain receptors.
Product DesiQn
The aim of this project would be to develop a product that
busies the mouth and hands, as do tobacco products; even looks
like a cigarette, but has no chemically reactive vehicles of
delivery to the lungs (tar) and entrains the receptors weakly
enough to simulate caffeine rather than opiates in its
habituation potential. The product would consist of multiple
compounds, each up-regulating a brain receptor, producing a mix
of energizing and calming similar to that of nicotine. It would
be graded at different levels of energizing versus relaxing
effects, to the point where in some versions certain features of
current frequently abused habituating drugs would be emulated.
It would be cloned into an agricultural product inert in its
liquid-gaseous phase that would carry the external stimuli to the
lungs, and packaged to provide taste and mechanical supports now
available through cigarettes.
Outputs
Cigarette substitutes would be the major outputs from the
recommended effort. The study would yield, as well, critical
information about the nature of drug abuse, and would hopefully
develop understandings that would allow design of non-addictive
substitutes for addictive drugs, replacing addiction with low
levels of habituation. Another output from this major research
might well be a remodeling of states of health and disease on the
basis of the interactive balance of brain receptors, leading to
the development of cloned replacements for disorganized or
degenerating receptor sites, and a consequent restoration of
function and opposition to pathological reactions such as cancer
or seizures.
Caveat
It should be understood that major research in a project
such as this is costly, that time-tables are difficult to set and
maintain, and that outcomes are uncertain and likely to be
surprising.
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WICHHAM & ASSOCIATES
ATTORNEYS AND COUNSELORS AT LAW
Negotiations
Negotiations should begin to identify the institutional
setting or settings for the research. The Howard Hughes
Foundation, The Robert Johnson Foundation, The Rockefeller
Foundation, Duke University and the Scripps Foundation all have
access to personnel of requisite skill and sufficient
flexibility, scientifically and attitudinally, to work actively
and effectively with the Company.
Public Relations
A Public Relations effort should be developed, which would
use this project as a jumping off place to impel reconsideration
of the Company's public image.
Consultants
I would like the help of two leaders in their respective
fields in the early planning for this project. The first is
Victor Weingarten, who leads his own firm in New York, the most
prominent devoted to medically-connected public relations. I
have worked with Mr. Weingarten in the past; he is a man of wide
range, long experience, and sound judgment. The second is Marc
Schuckit, M.D., who is a leading expert on brain receptors. He
is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California at San
Diego. He has written extensively on the topic, and is in close
touch both with who is doing what where, and with the published
and unpublished state of the art in this area.
Bibliography upon request.
Mr. Lane Porter of Wickham & Associates aided in the
reasonably extensive bibliographic research (at the National
Library of Medicine) required for preparation of this memorandum.
P.S.W.
PSW/kyp
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