Tobacco Documents Online

~ 'American manufacturers are not using this process, which probably could be used in cigarettes,' he said. 'Some ingredients, like burley [tobacco] stems, are especially high in nitrosamines. That could be reduced.' Slade also said devices such as nicotine gum, patches, sprays or inhalers, which deliver doses of pure nicotine without harmful by-products, can be helpful. 'That's as close as we'll come to making tobacco perfectly safe,' he said. 'There is no way to make smoke from a burning cigarette poison-free. My goal is to reduce illness and death from tobacco to lowest extent possible.' LANGUAGE: ENGLISH LOAD-DATE: July 08, 1997 0 N O O ~ W ! 4 N 6) W

0 N O O i Im V - w N O> A

! 0 Copyright 1997 The Florida Times-Union The Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville, FL) July 6,1997 Sunday, City Edition SECTION: INSIGHT; Pg. H-6 LENGTH: 726 words HEADLINE: Tobacco industry regulation may lead to safer cigarettes BYLINE: Knight-Tribune News Service BODY: WASHINGTON -- Now that the tobacco industry has been forced to admit that smoking can kill, a new push for less deadly brands is likely. But is there such a thing as a 'safe' cigarette? Or is that a blatant contradiction in terms? 'You can't ever make tobacco smoke totally harmless, but you can make it less harmful,' said John Slade, a medical doctor and leading authority on smoking and health at St. Peter's Medical Center in New Brunswick, N.J. 'There are technologies that will reduce the poisons in smoke.' Tobacco companies may soon be using them. If last month's deal between cigarette manufacturers and anti-smoking forces holds up, the Food and Drug Administration would have the power to require companies to offer 'less hazardous tobacco products.' It could also order the gradual phase-out of nicotine, the chemical that makes it so hard for smokers to quit. And if the industry fails to come up with a less dangerous alternative to today's brands, the government could step in to do the job itself or license a third party to do so. Health experts divide the safer-cigarette problem into two parts: Eliminating nicotine, which is addictive but does relatively little direct harm itself, except to fetuses. ~ Reducing the carbon monoxide, tars and other carcinogens contained in tobacco smoke, which cause cancer, heart disease, emphysema and other ailments.

i 'Nicotine hooks people; the other ingredients kill,' said Mohammad Akhter, executive director of the American Public Health Association. 'Yes, you can make a safer cigarette,' said Donald Shopland, head of the smoking and tobacco-control program at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md. 'The real question is: Will the consumer accept it?' 'I might try it,' said Ruth Watson, 33, a pack-a-day Salem smoker who works in a Washington tobacco shop. 'I've been smoking since I was 16, and I need to stop. I haven't tried to quit, but sometimes I worry about cancer.' The tobacco industry has been offering various forms of 'low-tar' or 'low-nicotine' cigarettes for more than 60 years, but the death toll continued to rise. The first commercial filter tip, a wad of cotton soaked in caustic soda, appeared in the 1931 Parliament. The Viceroy came along in 1936 with a cellulose filter that it claimed removed half the particles in smoke. Ads for the 1952 Kent proclaimed it 'the greatest health protection in cigarette history; according to 'Ashes to Ashes,' a 1996 history of the tobacco industry by Richard Kluger. ~ By and large, these 'milder' models didn't work. People simply smoked more to get the same amount of nicotine, said Neal Benowitz, an expert on addiction at the University of California, San Francisco. The more they puffed, the more toxic substances and carbon monoxide they took in. 'Low-tar and filter cigarettes never delivered on their promises,' said Slade, from St. Peter's. 'They actually sustained and increased the market. People kept on smoking or were recruited to smoking with promises of safety.' • Nevertheless, Benowitz says reducing the amount of nicotine in a cigarette is worthwhile. 'People will find it easier to quit as nicotine levels drop,' he said in an interview. 'They will have to smoke harder. It's going to be harsh. It's not going to be pleasant to puff.' In addition, experts suggest various ways to reduce or eliminate at least some of the 4,000 chemical compounds -- about 60 of them carcinogenic -- found in tobacco products. For example, Slade noted that a Swedish tobacco monopoly has developed a manufacturing technique that lowers the level of nitrosamines, a cancer-causing chemical, in snuff, a product that is gaining popularity with both Swedish and American teenagers.