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The following transcript is of the DayOne Smoke Screen Segment
broadcast February 28, 1994.
Participants:
* Forrest Sawyer, DayOne Moderator
* John Martin, DayOne Correspondent
* Mike Synar, (D) Oklahoma
* Dr. Jack Henningfield
* Don Barrett
* Van Neuheiser (sp?)
* Dr. C Everett Koop, Former US Surgeon General
* Bogdan Kopochek (sp?)
* Joseph de Bethizy, RJR Scientist
* John Robinson, RJR Scientist
* Dr. Greg Connolly
* Dr. John Slade
* Cliff Douglas, American Cancer Society
Sawyer: Tonight a DayOne investigation that could completely
transform the tobacco industry. It was back in 1964
that the Surgeon General declared cigarettes to be
hazardous to your health. After that cigarette
companies were forced to change the way they labeled
and advertised their product. It was the biggest
challenge the powerful cigarette industry had ever
faced - until now.
For nearly a year DayOne has been investigating
nicotine - the ingredient in cigarettes that keeps
smokers addicted - and we've discovered that
cigarette manufacturers had been carefully
controlling levels of nicotine in cigarettes.
Late last week, when word of our investigation got
out, the Food and Drug Administration announced that
it is now considering whether to regulate cigarettes
as drugs. And Congress is planning to hold hearings
on the issue next month. Hearings that could be the
first step toward a ban on cigarettes as they are now
manufactured. Clearly the story is just beginning
and this investigation from John Martin is what
started the new cigarette war.
Martin: From these tobacco fields comes one of the world's
most profitable and addictive substances.
To many smokers cigarettes are simply leaves rolled
in white paper. In reality, cigarettes are a complex
scientifically engineered product about which little
is known publicly.
Do you think the tobacco companies have been open and
honest with people about what's in their product?
Synar: Absolutely not. In fact they've done just the
opposite. They've basically blocked any attempts for
us to give an honest account to the American public
of the ingredients within the product.
Martin: One ingredient contained in these tobacco leaves is
known - Nicotine. The 1988 Surgeon General's report
identified nicotine as a highly addictive drug and
said, this is why smoking can be as difficult to quit
as heroin or cocaine.
One of the writers of the report was addiction expert
Dr. Jack Henningfield.
Henningfield:
The cigarette is essentially the crack cocaine form
of nicotine delivery.
Martin: Now a lengthy DayOne investigation has uncovered
perhaps the tobacco industry's last best secret - how
it artificially adds nicotine to cigarettes, to keep
people smoking and boost profits.
The methods the cigarette companies use to precisely
control the levels of nicotine is something that has
never before been disclosed to consumers or the
government.
For years, growing and blending tobacco was an art.
But about thirty years ago, it began evolving into
something quite different.
1960's Promotional Film:
In Liggett and Myers laboratory, modern science makes
certain that the smoker gets precisely what he
expects to get.
Martin: And one thing smokers are supposed to get is
nicotine. That was made clear decades ago by a
Philip Morris official. He wrote this confidential
internal memo.
* Think of the cigarette pack as a storage
container for a day's supply of nicotine.
* Think of the cigarette as a dispenser for a dose
unit of nicotine.
* Think of a puff of smoke as the vehicle of
nicotine.
Martin: It was here in Winston-Salem, North Carolina that the
manufacturing process began to change.
The RJ Reynolds tobacco company pioneered a two step
process to make cigarettes more cheaply and to
control the level of nicotine.
Step one - It developed reconstituted tobacco, which
is made from stalks and stems and other waste that it
used to throw away.
Barrett: The American public doesn't understand that the
tobacco - that its not a natural tobacco leaf. Its
a, So much of the cigarette is so-called
reconstituted tobacco, its a manufactured product.
Martin: Don Barrett sued the American Tobacco Company on
behalf of a client who has since died of cancer.
Barrett discovered a great deal about how cigarettes
are manufactured.
Barrett: They would take the material, the dust, the tobacco
dust that fell on the floor and then sweep those up
and dump them in a big bin and they would use that to
make the so-called reconstituted tobacco.
Martin: The processes involved in controlling the nicotine
level are company secrets. This former RJR manager
asked to be interviewed in silhouette.
Unidentified RJR Manager:
On the average, corporate marketed brands contain
about 22% reconstituted tobacco. The cut rate or
generic brands typically contain usually about double
that.
Martin: DayOne commissioned a laboratory analysis that
confirmed the industry's heavy use of reconstituted
tobacco. In one brand from RJR, it comprised a
quarter of the cigarette. In another, about a third.
Even though reconstituted tobacco allows the
companies to produce cigarettes more cheaply, there
are problems - poor taste and less nicotine. So
here's what the companies do in step two.
They apply a powerful tobacco extract containing
nicotine and flavor to the reconstituted tobacco.
This process too is meant to be secret. Of the five
companies we contacted, who supply the extract, only
one would talk to us on camera.
Neuheiser: The tobacco people are very secretive on what they
use. Some of them, I would think, if you asked them
if they used tobacco, they might just say they don't,
you know.
Martin: Van Neuheiser is a vice president of Doctor Madis
Laboratories. He told us how they make this
concentrated extract that is rich in nicotine.
Neuheiser: You put the solvent on it - whatever solvent it is,
water or alcohol - then just percolate it. And after
you percolate it you concentrate it. Its basically
the same as you have in a drip coffee pot. Its kind
of a syrupy consistency, you know, like molasses.
Martin: Why would the tobacco companies use this nicotine
rich syrup.
Unidentified RJR Manager:
They put nicotine in the form of a tobacco extract
into a product to keep the consumer happy.
Martin: They're fortifying the product with nicotine. Is
that correct?
Unidentified RJR Manager:
The waste filler? Yes, they are.
Koop: Well as you describe that - which I've heard for the
first time - it makes my blood boil, because what
they are now selling is not a natural tobacco product
which happens to have nicotine in it, but they are
selling a nicotine dispenser. And that is quite
different.
Martin: To try to verify that nicotine is being added to the
reconstituted tobacco in cigarettes, we went to the
American Health Foundation, a respected research
center in Valhalla New York.
At DayOne's request, the foundation separated and
then analyzed the reconstituted tobacco portion of
several brands of RJR cigarettes. Reconstituted
tobacco ordinarily contains 25% or less of the
nicotine in regular tobacco. But the samples we
tested had up to 70% of the nicotine that would be
found in regular tobacco.
Bogdan Kopochek performed the analysis.
Kopochek: Well, I was kind of surprised because I excepted it
to be less. The most likely explanation is that
someone has altered it. Either with flavoring agents
or ??????.
Martin: Why are you adding nicotine to your cigarettes?
Bethizy: We not in any way doing that.
Martin: You're not adding nicotine?
Bethizy: No, We, We, We don't do that.
Martin: Joseph de Bethizy and John Robinson are RJR
scientists involved in tobacco research.
Martin: You know about tobacco extracts though?
Bethizy: I do know about tobacco extracts. They, They,
They're er used as flavor materials and and its very
common in the tobacco industry.
Martin: But is there nicotine in those?
Bethizy: Uh, a water extract of tobacco would have nicotine in
it. Uh.
Martin: How much?
Bethizy: Just like a water extract of of of of the coffee bean
would have caffeine in it. Uh, And
Martin: So - Would this be a little bit or a lot?
Bethizy: Uh, Uh, Its hard for me to say. I, I don't know what
a little bit or a lot would be. Uh, Uh, But I think
that Uh
Martin: How much does it have?
Bethizy: I think any company involved in the manufacture of
tobacco Uh, and whose consumers are demanding a wide
range of tar and nicotine products Uh, They have Uh,
Uh, blending and reconstituted tobacco techniques for
reaching those, Uh, that range of of tar and nicotine
in their products.
Martin: But how much nicotine is added? The companies
control the dosage precisely according to this former
RJR manager.
In commercially sold cigarettes, what percentage of
tobacco extract is nicotine?
Unidentified RJR Manager:
Uh, That, That really depends on what level the
process calls for. In other words, I can say to you,
I want it at one percent, I want it at five percent,
I want it at ten percent, I want it at fifteen
percent.
Martin: Its this ability to control the exact dosage of
nicotine with tobacco extract that is so alarming to
Dr. Greg Connolly, a Massachusetts health official.
Connolly: Tobacco extract is taking nicotine out of tobacco
leaf. Its a drug called nicotine. Its a euphemism.
Its like calling heroin, poppy seed oil. Its a drug.
Its a drug. Its a drug.
Martin: Publicly the companies say they are adding this
extract just for the flavor but there is evidence to
contradict that.
First - an extract industry manager told DayOne
cigarette makers also use his product to give
reconstituted tobacco a quote kick. That kick, he
says, comes from nicotine.
Second - Even RJR's own researchers say they believe
nicotine is a primary reason people smoke. They have
identified nicotine's effect on the body, its ability
to reduce anxiety and increase mental alertness.
In this 1992 study co-authored by RJR's Dr. Robinson,
they wrote, the beneficial effects of smoking on
cognitive performance are a function of nicotine
absorbed from cigarette smoke.
In addition, patents owned by the cigarette companies
show they are well aware of the science of dosing and
delivering nicotine.
According to this 1980 patent, obtained by DayOne,
Loews, the parent company of cigarette maker
Lorillard, held the rights to a system that is
especially attractive in enriching the nicotine
content of reconstituted tobacco.
Dr. John Slade, an expert in nicotine addiction, has
researched cigarette patents.
Slade: My conclusion from looking at this is that the
tobacco companies have been doing this for a very
long time - a fine tuning of the nicotine content of
the products.
Martin: LTR Industries, a French subsidiary of Kimberly
Clark, even advertises in a trade journal that its
process for treating reconstituted tobacco permits
adjustments of nicotine to your exact requirements.
There's another way nicotine is added to cigarettes.
And it begins, perhaps surprisingly at docks like
this one in Newark, New Jersey. It is here that
nearly pure nicotine is brought ashore to be combined
with alcohol. Its called denaturing. The mixture
can then be applied to tobacco during the
manufacturing process for, among other things,
flavoring.
As these trucking records show, Philip Morris, for
example, received thousands of gallons of this
alcohol mixture during the 1980's. The cigarette
makers say this mixture leaves only a tiny amount of
nicotine on the tobacco. Still any kind of nicotine
manipulation disturbs critics like Cliff Douglas of
the American Cancer Society.
Douglas: The public doesn't know that the industry manipulates
nicotine, takes it out, puts it back in, uses it as
if it were sugar being put in candy. They don't have
a clue.
Martin: Neither, apparently, do members of Congress.
Synar: Well, it disgusts me.
Martin: Were you aware of that?
Synar: No, I wasn't. They don't want anybody looking at
their product and the reason is exactly what you just
went through. So that they can doctor it, they can
alter it, they can do anything with it. And they can
literally jeopardize the health of the American
public without having any consequence.
Martin: The tobacco industry boosts that it makes cigarettes
with various yields of nicotine as demonstrated over
the years when it tests them on a machine like this
one. The industry says the availability of low tar,
low nicotine cigarettes gives consumers a choice.
Henningfield:
Scientifically, the low tar, low nicotine cigarette
notion is basically a scam.
Martin: Jack Henningfield of the National Institute of Drug
Abuse, argues that these low yields, for the most
part, are obtained, not by removing nicotine, but
rather by using filters and air holes. But smokers
get around this he said.
Henningfield:
They take a few extra puffs. They inhale a little
bit more deeply. They beat the machine. They beat
the cigarette. They get all the nicotine their body
needs to maintain addiction.
Martin: Actually, if the companies wanted to take out all the
nicotine, they could.
It appears as you could take all the nicotine out
right now of cigarettes and sell them. Couldn't you?
Bethizy: Uh, We have, We have not done that.
Martin: But you could do it?
Bethizy: Well, as scientists and engineers here in R&D, I, I
think that that could be done. But I, But I think
the the real issue here here is that, we, as a
company are providing a legal product to people who
are looking for a pleasing sensory experience with
mild pharmacology.
Martin: So why don't cigarette makers take the nicotine out
of cigarettes.
Koop: Because they wouldn't sell cigarettes. If cigarettes
didn't give you a bang, they wouldn't sell them.
Martin: Philip Morris knows this from its own experience. In
1991, it test marketed "NEXT", a de-nicotized
cigarette that it withdrew from the market because
without nicotine, few smokers would buy it.
How tobacco companies manipulate nicotine and their
reluctance to take it out strongly suggests that they
want smokers to get nicotine and they want them to
get it in controlled doses.
Seven months ago when we tried to get a reaction
about all this from the Food and Drug Administration,
the agency declined comment, but immediately sent out
investigators to look into the matter on their own.
Then, learning of our DayOne broadcast tonight, the
FDA sent out this letter on Friday.
Quote, evidence brought to our attention is
accumulating that suggests the cigarette
manufacturers may intend that their products contain
nicotine to satisfy an addiction.
That's why the FDA says it may have the legal basis
on which to regulate these products.
Connolly: If the industry could put nicotine into Nabisco
Shredded Wheat an get compulsive breakfast eaters,
I'm sure they'd do it.
Martin: But they can't, of course. That's because nicotine
is regulated in every other form including nicotine
patches and nicotine gum, which people use to quit
smoking. Cigarettes are the exception. That's
because the tobacco industry has been highly
successful in getting Congress to protect it from
regulation, according to Dr. Connolly, the
Massachusetts health official.
Connolly: They exempted the cigarette from the Federal
Hazardous Substances Act, Controlled Substances Act,
Toxic Substances Act, Consumer Products Safety Act.
Every major piece of health legislation since 1964
has had a specific exemption for cigarettes.
Synar: The lobby of tobacco is probably one of the most
pervasive lobbies in Washington DC. Whenever two
members of Congress are gathered together, you can
probably find tobacco money.
Martin: But the FDA has indicated it doesn't need Congress'
permission to act though it wants its guidance. Even
without legislation, the FDA believes it already has
the legal authority to act on its own. And given the
evidence now under consideration the agency could ban
all cigarettes with addictive levels of nicotine. In
other words, virtually every single cigarette on the
market.
Koop: I would think that if I were the administrator of FDA
and I learned that nicotine was being added to
cigarettes to increase the amount of nicotine present
that I would view that cigarette as a delivery device
for the use of nicotine which is, under ordinary
circumstances, a prescription drug. And I would
think that demanded regulation.
Sawyer: John, this is really a remarkable story but
regulation is a very big word. When they talk about
regulating the cigarette industry. What do we mean?
Martin: It means that the cigarettes would have to be
certified as safe and effective as any other drug is
by the Food and Drug Administration.
Sawyer: What about the cigarettes being sold today? Can they
be certified?
Martin: Many of them could not because they have higher
levels of nicotine than the Surgeon General has said
is addictive and I'm certain the FDA would have them
banned on the market.
Sawyer: What does the tobacco industry say about all this?
Martin: Well, they say that they're not really adding
nicotine. That they're moving it from one part of
the tobacco product to another. And they presumably
could offer a cigarette that is simply the leaf and
not this reconstituted filler material. However,
that would raise the amount of nicotine and it
probably wouldn't help them avoid regulation.
Sawyer: Well, obviously there's a lot more to come here.
You're still working on this story?
Martin: We're going full speed ahead this week.
Sawyer: And we will watch for that next development next
week.
John Martin - Thanks very much.
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