The Wa Po reports a new study which shows that tobacco companies have been quietly increasingly the nicotine in the brands most smoked by kids and minorities for the past decade, increasing the toxicity and addictiveness of their products.
The study, reported by the Boston Globe, found that 92 of 116 brands tested had higher nicotine yields in 2004 than in 1998, and 52 had increases of more than 10 percent.
Boxes of Doral lights, a low-tar brand made by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., had the biggest increase in yield, 36 percent. Some of this may have been the result of an increase in the total amount of tobacco put in that brand's cigarettes, one expert said.
The nicotine in Marlboro products, preferred by two-thirds of high school smokers, increased 12 percent. Kool lights increased 30 percent. Two-thirds of African American smokers use menthol brands.
Busted! So, Big Tobacco titrate nicotine just like a drug.
Tobacco products should come under the FDA's jurisdiction then?
2 comments:
Insider, you beat me to the punch. I posted a similar thread as well http://mouseasthma.blogspot.com/2006/09/tobacco-tails.html
The problem being tobacco is so engrained in our culture it would almost be like trying to revive prohibition. It certainly is a sad state of affairs though. SADLY, I suspect this will drift off into the not so newsworthy in a few weeks and all will be forgotten.
Quick! What does the tobacco industry and drug industry have in common?
See my October, 2005 post to Pharma Marketing Blog on the similarities between Big Pharma and Big Tobacco: "Tobacco & Drugs: Strange Bedfellows".
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