Tobacco Documents Online

; ? <?J . r ~ .. ~ R. ... :.. . ^ .. ..._ . .. .. . .. - r_.. ,. ^' al chem ical companies (ICI. l commerci Meanwhtle severa ' Celanese, Bayer, and Courtaulds) are fanning the smoking and health fire Recognizing the 'multi-billion dollar world market for tobacco, they are vigorously marketing their brand name substitutes among ~ '~~ .._ - ..~ ~~-.~. , ... , ... . .. ~.-..: ... :. :~: fY.~.~. ' the cigaret manufacturers in various countries, each hoping to stake out ;~' ,{Re:. , . -i.. . i eee o w Y~ a malor p ~ T• ';JL~J' >,~~:a`~]l~ .i~~ -~~i t ~)!,~i'- ~ 7~u~ ~5~ . ~ ¢X Ql~ ie~ ~'A'J!/a T l ~ y !• f h . ~ . vY..i. .,~ r ` .: F~ ~'` ilf ~l ed a n r ti ff k h s M'~• " g g e e ey a e ng e ort t 6obcitBackmg up their mar ->y~taco cgare., '- y . *~- __ ~~`rL 51n';r`-~'~ .t r,'r .i `? 'y~~`e~'(~'~'*~~'~ ~,~ .'°~1~'.~'1 y~li .'~ ~'~o'~ __Y .#:~!~$X'.~t!t`~yg•>. .~' ~ .. =,x M'~A~

-2- [ ( . in mass ive research, development, and biotesting programs to generate technical bases for their products. The possibility that their marketing tests before giving permission for extensive marketing programs. (This Federal authorities have required nothing more than preliminary chemical push may be premature relative to the safety demonstration of their products seems to be lost in the heat of competition. In Germany, for example, where test markets of such products are under way, the approach is in contrast with that in Britain where a Government appointed Hunter Committee is requiring a testing program comparable to that required of a new single drug entity). At the same time the cigaret manufacturer is besieged from many r I. I L F I ! directions. Not only is there pressure from the chemical companies beating on the door, but there is also publicity pressure from health authorities, anti-smoking leagues, and consumer groups to make cigaret smoking safer. All this on top of the usual business pressures in a highly competitive, market intensive, consumer product arena in which each contestant is constantly wary and fearful that his competitors may beat him to a changing market. In such a crisis atmosphere it is not surprising to hear shouts of "DO SOMETHING!" even though that some- thing may not be the right and sensible thing to do. It can easily happen that the industry will be pressured into a state of panic which is not conducive to sober contemplation and rational decision. One publication has already described the situation as a "stampede to synthetic cigarets." In the several years that momentum for non-tobacco substitutes in cigarets has been gaining, very few people have objectively questioned >::.,. . .

3 [ I the hypothesis that such a movement will benefit the smoker. The general attitude has been that tobacco cigarets are bad, non-tobacco cigarets must be better. But are they? Recently there appeared in a British editorial ("Hunter for Safe F t U I I I I I C Smoking," Chemistry in Britain, Vol. 10, p. 425, November 1974) a review of non-tobacco substitute rnaterials. Serious questions re- garding the safety and effectiveness of such materials were raised. Cigaret manufacturers should give careful attention to these points before exposing the smoking public to tobacco substitutes. To quote from the editorial - "Non-tobacco materials are meant to reduce the hazards to the smoker; nevertheless, they present unknown and possibly entirely new potential hazards. The smoke of the material and of the mixtures of tobacco/non-tobacco material may differ substantially from tobacco smoke, little knowledge of predictive value exists. Is the "cure" going to be as bad as the disease?" To answer this question, medical researchers cannot test the non-tobacco srnoking material as tobacco has been tested in man for several hundred years under conditions of actual use. With tobacco .

-4- t I II I ~ i I I- L I l r the results (such as they are) are well known and documented. What- ever the price of smoking, it is by now generally known and accepted by the smoker and is paid only after decades of exposure. The non- tobacco smoke, on the other hand, must be tested like a new drug in test animal systems. Without going into details two problems arise: (1) No test animal system has reproduced the alleged harmful effects of tobacco smoke in man; and (2) In order to demonstrate a less harmful smoke the test system must be not only reproducible but also quantifiable. It should also be relatable to health in man. The com- plexities of bioassay procedures and cigaret smoke composition (from either tobacco or non-tobacco materials) makes these requirements extremely difficult to meet. ' It is thus almost impossible to ensure or even predict by this route that smoking non-tobacco materials would be safer for smokers. With the publicity already given, any such product carries with it an improved health risk connotation and will be taken up by millions of smokers. Only after.20 or 30 years would the final judgement be possible. Again quoting from the editorial in Chemistry in Britain: "The real question is whether any of the non-tobacco materials so far offer the advantages sought; for a significant effect, levels of incorporation may have to be high so that smokers will not accept the product ... an 80/20 or 90/10 mixture of tobacco/cellulosic derivative, which might have been acceptable to smokers, would offer little such gain (in health risk)." N O N

5 . I f r I i I I I- 1 L I ( L One of the claimed advantages of non-tobacco smoking materials is that they deliver less tar in the smoke than tobacco. It is argued by the smoking and hea1th advocates that more tar means greater risk to health (biological dose-response relationship). This argument provides the basis for generating pressures on cigaret manufacturers through publication of FTC "Tar" or league (U. K. ) tables of tar and nicotine of marketed cigarets to reduce the deliveries of these constituents from their products. Let us suppose that a product contained 20 percent of a non-tobacco material which delivered only one-fourth as much "tar" per unit weight burned as the tobacco component. The net tar reduction would only be 15 percent from that of an all tobacco cigaret. The smoker could easily achieve this reduction by changing his smoking pattern (switching to filter, taking smaller, fewer puffs, or longer butt) or by selecting a lower delivery cigaret. Such a self imposed reduction would avoid any unknown hazard~ in smoking a cigaret containing non-tobacco " material. Another supposed advantage of the non-tobacco cigaret material is that the tar which is produced is less toxic than tobacco tar. (This difference also appears to be true of different tobacco blends and components. In other words, not all tars are alike in their biological effects. This fact is ignored in the publication of a composite table of tar and nicotine values for various cigarets). Tar toxicity comparisons

6 I f I t t L I L L I [ are made on the basis of equal weights of introduction into the animal bioassay system. As a result, the lowered activity of non-tobacco material tar offers little potential advantage to a mixed cigaret unless the proportion of the material is very high. In fact, it has been observed that tar from an 80/20 tobacco substitute cigaret can be just as active biologically as the 100 percent tobacco cigaret. Some proposed non- tobacco materials have been found to be even more active than tobacco in animal bioassay tests and/or more active in admixtures with tobacco than either component alone. The hope that a tobacco/non-tobacco mixture cigaret in something like an 80/20 or 90/10 proportion will be a safer cigaret is nothing more than a hope. It is certainly not supported by the facts. Furthermore the marketing of such a product in the light of recent publicity will be nothing more than the perpetration of a fraud on the public because of '" the irnplied~ "seal of approval." It willtake dramatic breakthroughs to make a high level non-tobacco material cigaret acceptable to the current generation of smokers. O O As summarized in the editorial referred to before: N N CO "Paradoxically, to minimize the new risks, new materials are on likely to be offered at low incorporations, biologically almost Ineffective, smokers (and, more important, non smokers) must not be misled about the contribution new non-tobacco materials will make to smoking products for somc years ahead."

I F I F i I I I I I I ~ ( People smoke tobacco because they like it, enjoy it, feel it does something for them physiologically, psychologically, and/or socially. Many attempts have been made to market cigarets made with naturally occurring non-tobacco materials (lettuce, etc.). None have been successful. The same can be said for the 10CF7., non-tobacco substitutes made by the chemical companies. Apparently, the smoke from tobacco provides a unique combination~ of naturally derived ingredients that makes it attractive to the smoker. It would seem correct to conclude, then, that a cigaret made with substantial proportions of non-tobacco, chemically derived, substitute material will deprive the smoker of many of the benefits he now perceives from smoking tobacco. Couple this denial with the false hope that he is smoking a safer material (which~ could in actuality be seriously hazardous to his health), the smoker of a non-tobacco containing cigaret may in all likelihood be the victim of the hoax of the century.