'Tobacco pandemic' fuelled by nicotine hike

13:22 18 January 2007
NewScientist.com news service
New Scientist staff and Reuters

Cigarette makers increased the amount of nicotine that smokers typically inhale by 11% between 1998 to 2005, perpetuating a "tobacco pandemic" that makes it harder for smokers to quit, according to a new study.

Manufactures have been intensifying the concentration of nicotine in their tobacco and modifying cigarette designs to increase the number of puffs per cigarette, the researchers claim. "The end result is a product that is potentially more addictive," they say.

The team at Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, US, analysed data submitted by major cigarette brands to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, which in August 2006 released its own study showing nicotine levels steadily rising.

The amount of nicotine that smokers typically consume per cigarette regardless of brand per year rose by an average of 1.6% between 1998 and 2005, according to the new analysis of the state's health records.

Massachusetts has required tobacco companies to submit annual reports on cigarette nicotine yields since 1997, longer than any other US state.
Cancer role

"Cigarettes are finely tuned drug delivery devices designed to perpetuate a tobacco pandemic," says Howard Koh, the school's associate dean for public health practice and former Massachusetts commissioner of public health.

Nicotine yields rose in cigarettes of each of the four major manufacturers and across all major cigarette market categories – from mentholated and non-mentholated to full-flavoured, light and ultralight, the researchers found.

Nicotine is the main addictive component of tobacco, but studies have demonstrated that the chemical also plays a direct role in cancer, by speeding up the growth of tumours.

Tobacco industry officials were not immediately available to comment. Phillip Morris, part of Altria Group Inc and the largest cigarette maker, has said nicotine levels fluctuate from year to year but there has been no steady increase.
Sales dropping

The most recent federal tobacco tax figures showed that the number of cigarettes sold in the US fell in 2005 to the lowest level in 55 years, dropping 4.2% from 2004, the largest one-year percentage decrease since 1999.

That continued an eight-year decline in cigarette smoking since the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement between US states and the tobacco industry that settled state lawsuits over the costs of treating smoking-related illnesses.

"Our findings call into serious question whether the tobacco industry has changed at all in its pursuit of addicting smokers since signing the Master Settlement Agreement," said Gregory Connolly, director of the Harvard School of Public Health's Tobacco Control Research Program.

He said tobacco companies had failed to warn consumers about rising levels of nicotine since the 1998 settlement, urging US states to step up scrutiny of the industry.