Nicotine Least Guilty
 

British American Tobacco Company Report: Perhaps Nicotine is the Least Guilty

  Date: October 30, 1978

 
Summary of Image
Page One
"...nicotine is an active principle which can actually produce a favourable effect upon one's organism, like any drug within a certain dosage... As with all drugs, there is also a toxic level for nicotine above which nicotine can be harmful... Nicotine is only one of the two to three thousand substances which are released in the combustion of a cigarette and which we put into our organisms... Carbon monoxide: a gas which is released from a cigarette and is very insidious. " [click on image to download document -- 25K]


 
Summary of Image
Page Two
"Examination of the blood of many heavy smokers reveals a higher number of red globules than normal (polyglobuly). This happens because the organism tries to defend itself from the chronic lack of oxygen... But polyglobuly makes one liable to thrombosis [clotting]... Tar, which is a composite of benzopyrene, nitrosamines and other substances produced by cigarette combustion, is jointly responsible for lung cancer. There is no longer any doubt about this....Tar reduces our defences against cancer; "
[click on image to download document -- 24K]


 
Summary of Image
Page Three
"Having said all this, we should just try to stop smoking. Not so easy. In the majority of cases it is a sickness or the first signs of a disorder which induce the smoker the throw his cigarettes away... 'nicotine hunger' is one of the causes impelling us to smoke... it [Smoking above certain levels] is like cutting off a bit of life from ourselves, day after day"
[click on image to download document -- 22K]


 

BACKGROUND NOTE: This British American Tobacco Company document, Perhaps nicotine is the least guilty, was written in 1978. It explains why the industry's low-nicotine cigarettes are actually more harmful than higher-nicotine cigarettes. As additional bonus, it describes the mechanisms through which tobacco smoke causes cardiac disease. (Yet, in 1993, when Glantz et al published a study revealing these same findings from experiments with rabbits exposed to environmental tobacco smoke, the industry immediately worked to discredit the findings.) This document also contains admissions that nicotine is a drug, that carbon monoxide (CO) is "a gas which is released from a cigarette and is very insidious," and also states that "Tar, which is a composite of benzopyrene, nitrosamines and other substances produced by cigarette combustion, is jointly responsible for lung cancer. There is no longer any doubt about this...."

This one contains a number of industry admissions that smoking causes disease.

Quotes:

Most people consider that nicotine is the substance responsible for the main disasters caused by smoking cigarettes. In fact, nicotine is an active principle which can actually produce a favourable effect upon one's organism, like any drug within a certain dosage. There are many people who, thanks to nicotine from their cigarettes, succeed in concentrating better and therefore working better. This is due to the fact that nicotine releases certain hormones (serotonin, adrenaline and noradrenaline) which stimulate the nervous system and accelerate the circulation of the blood, increasing the flow of blood and therefore oxygen to the brain.

There are many people who, because of nicotine, do not need laxatives, because it also stimulates peristalsis, i.e. the spontaneous movements of the stomach and of the intestine.

Nicotine actually causes a tranquilizing effect. Indeed it is the best tranquilizer there is because, unlike the pills which reduce anxiety but lower the capacity for concentration, nicotine acts positively upon anxiety, reducing it, and upon mental concentration, increasing it. All this is, of course, provided that the dosage is contained within certain limits, i.e., a certain number of cigarettes. As with all drugs, there is also a toxic level for nicotine above which nicotine can be harmful.

For years now, in the campaign waged against cigarettes, the spectre of nicotine has been raised. The man in the street has linked all damage deriving from cigarettes to nicotine. Faced with the threat of a reduction in cigarette smoking throughout the world, what has the industry which produces them done? Astutely, it has put out low nicotine content cigarettes, which today seem to be the favourites with the smokers, who thus feel that they can go on smoking and being protected from the dangers contained in the smoke. But in fact, this is not the case. Rather, a group of British researchers have recently demonstrated that low nicotine content cigarettes are even more harmful. Let us try and understand how this is.

1) Nicotine is only one of the two to three thousand substances which are released in the combustion of a cigarette and which we put into our organisms. Within certain limits it gives us those advantages to which reference has been made. Above a certain dosage it gives rise to an increase in fats in the blood and reduces the dimension of the arteries so that anyone suffering from high blood pressure, from angina pectoris, or who has (hyper colesterolemia) should not smoke. However, a cigarette contains other much more harmful substances, which are not much talked about. These are:

2) Carbon monoxide: a gas which is released from a cigarette and is very insidious. In fact, we have said that nicotine increases the blood flow, accelerating cardiac frequency, which rises from 60-80 heartbeats a minute to 80-100. This would not be harmful; even when we walk quickly our heart beats with a similar frequency. But when the heart beats faster it needs more oxygen to work properly. However, carbon monoxide extracts oxygen from the heart and it therefore has to work in a precarious condition, with the risks you can imagine.

3) Examination of the blood of many heavy smokers reveals a higher number of red globules than normal (polyglobuly). This happens because the organism tries to defend itself from the chronic lack of oxygen, producing a larger number of red globules (corpuscles) which as you will know--take up the oxygen in the lungs and carry it to all the tissues. But polyglobuly makes one liable to thrombosis [clotting].

Now, according to the British researchers, it has been discovered that although it is true that a filter retains a certain amount of nicotine, it increases by about [measurement illegible] the amount of carbon monoxide absorbed by the smoker.

3) Tar, which is a composite of benzopyrene, nitrosamines and other substances produced by cigarette combustion, is jointly responsible for lung cancer. There is no longer any doubt about this....Tar reduces our defences against cancer; in particular it paralyzes the bronchial defensive systems, so that if the unknown cause of cancer attacks a smoker, it finds his defences stripped.

4) Finally, there is never enough talk about other substances found in cigarettes such as acreolin... ethane and formaldehyde which irritate the bronchial tubes which are responsible for the most varying illnesses related to cigarette smoking: i,e, the chronic bronchitis with all their remote complications from pulmonary emphysema to cardio-respiratory insufficiency. Many smokers avoid cancer and heart attacks but few avoid the chronic bronchitic conditions which however shorten one's life.

Having said all this, we should just try to stop smoking. Not so easy. In the majority of cases it is a sickness or the first signs of a disorder which induce the smoker the throw his cigarettes away. But there are those who manage it, independently of this. In any case, do not let yourself be led astray by low nicotine content cigarettes; it has been seen indeed that those who go over to that type of cigarette end up by smoking more of them, to the producer's great joy. In fact, "nicotine hunger" is one of the causes impelling us to smoke.

...[W]ithin certain limits (not more than 10 a day) [smoking] causes no more damage than many other aggressive chemicals which we breathe every day in the air or which are masked in what we eat. But above certain levels...it is like cutting off a bit of life from ourselves, day after day.

...[A]nti-smoking campaigns are destined to fail because everyone has different motivations for smoking. The illusion of the "safer smoke" has instead made people more sensitive.

...But what is meant by a lighter or milder cigarette? Foreign broadcasting stations and newspapers in the form of advertising indicate some brands as being "less harmful" and speak of figures and percentages, but some of the figures brought forward are incorrect. The Monopoly made no bones about it, wanting the matter to be clarified....When the Monopoly realized that some figures were incorrect, they made some producers...remove the figures and replace them with "low nicotine content"...

Anne Landman
American Lung Association of Colorado, West Region Office
Grand Junction


Title: Perhaps nicotine is the least guilty
Type of Document: Report
Author: N/A (British American tobacco Company)
Date: 19781030
Page Count: 3
Site: U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Tobacco Industry Document
site, Guildford documents
http://outside.cdc.gov:8080/BASIS/ncctld/web/guildford/sf
Bates No. 10042869/8871
URL:
http://outside.cdc.gov:8080/BASIS/ncctld/web/mnimages/DDW?W=DETAILSID=758

 

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