Panel Calls for Better Way to Measure Tar, Nicotine in Cigarettes

A federal advisory panel Tuesday recommended major changes in the decades-old method of measuring the tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide content of cigarettes to more accurately reflect the range of these toxic substances that smokers inhale.

The panel of experts said that the measuring method, which uses cigarette-puffing machines, yields results that often lull smokers into thinking they can reduce their health risks by choosing cigarettes labeled low in tar and nicotine. Smokers also are receiving deceptive information about the extent of the dangers, the committee said.

“Research has shown that people who smoke cigarettes labeled low-tar may get much higher doses” of tar than that indicated on the label or in advertising, said Dr. Harold Freeman, chairman of the President’s Cancer Panel, which was convened by the National Cancer Institute.

Smoking has been described by public health experts as the nation’s leading cause of preventable death, responsible for killing 400,000 Americans annually. It is associated with pulmonary and heart disease and several cancers, chief among them lung cancer.

The panel’s work is expected to add to the growing body of scientific evidence that federal health officials slowly have been gathering to support the regulation of tobacco. The Food and Drug Administration has been building a case over the last year presumably to regulate cigarettes as delivery systems of nicotine, a drug the agency has authority to regulate.

Critics of the traditional Federal Trade Commission’s machine-measuring process, which dates back to 1967, have long recommended that the method be revised because cigarette designs have changed considerably in recent years.

The machines hold cigarettes and draw air through them in two-second puffs, repeating the puffs every minute until the cigarette is burned to the filter. But today, many brands of cigarettes have holes in their filter paper to dilute the smoke with air, thus the machine’s measuring device cannot accurately calculate the amount of tar and nicotine contained in the cigarette.

“There’s a big difference between people and machines,” said Jack E. Henningfield, chief of the clinical pharmacology branch of the National Institute on Drug Abuse’s addiction research center.

Smokers often do not smoke the way the machine smokes--they may draw deeper, puff more, or cover the air filtration holes with their lips or fingers, thus blocking the air that would have diluted the smoke.

Smokers who choose “light” cigarettes find ways to compensate and can wind up inhaling just as much nicotine and other ingredients as those who smoke regular cigarettes.

“People have nicotine-dependent brains and they will beat the system to get the nicotine they need,” Henningfield said.

The committee said that smoking cigarettes with low machine-measured yields may have a “small effect” in reducing cancer risk but has no effect on the risk of cardiovascular disease and an uncertain impact on the risk of pulmonary disease.

“The health benefits of switching are minimal compared to quitting entirely,” said Freeman, who is director of surgery at Harlem Hospital Center in New York. “And how you smoke is much more important than what you smoke.”