BAT Researcher Called Tobacco a ‘Cheap Drug’ in Memo

In language echoing the current position of the Food and Drug Administration, a researcher for tobacco giant BAT Industries called tobacco a “highly . . . effective and cheap ‘drug’ ” and cigarettes “a ‘drug’ administration system,” according to a memo released late this week in a major lawsuit in Florida.

Whereas nicotine takes a few seconds to reach the brain, “other ‘drugs,’ such as marijuana, amphetamines and alcohol, are slower and may be mood dependent,” says the memo by C.C. Greig of BAT, parent company of U.S. cigarette maker Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp.

“Thus we have an emerging picture of a fast, highly pharmacologically effective and cheap ‘drug,’ tobacco, which also confers flavour and manual and oral satisfaction to the user,” wrote Greig, who worked for BAT’s research and development center in Southampton, England.

Though the memo was undated, it is believed to have been written within the last 15 years, based on a reference to a cigarette brand, Barclay, that was introduced in the United States in the early 1980s.

The 12-page memo was part of a shipment of 18 boxes of records produced by BAT lawyers this week for Ness, Motley, Loadholt, Richardson & Poole of Charleston, S.C. The law firm is assisting the Florida attorney general in its anti-tobacco lawsuit, which seeks recovery of Medicaid expenditures for smoking-related illnesses. BAT and B&W; are among the defendants in the case.

The memo’s admissions are “totally contrary to what the industry has stated in public,” said Andy Berly, a Ness, Motley lawyer.

Michael Corrigan, a New York-based lawyer for BAT, said Friday that he could not address the specifics of the memo as BAT’s offices in England were closed for the weekend. Greig could not be reached for comment.

The FDA has declared tobacco products to be drug delivery devices, and has adopted a set of advertising curbs meant to reduce smoking by teens.

However, tobacco executives maintain that their products are not addictive. And joining forces with publishing and retail interests, they are fighting in court to void the FDA regulations, claiming the agency lacks legal authority over tobacco.

While praising cigarettes as a “relatively cheap and efficient delivery system, legal and easily usable,” the memo also acknowledged smoking’s drawbacks.

“The major one is that it has a ‘health shadow’ over it which is not easy to dispel. Secondly, it is a messy habit, polluting the nonsmokers’ breathable atmosphere, and leaving ash and debris, not to mention smells, around for hours or days,” Greig wrote.

But quoting Oscar Wilde, he described smoking as an “exquisite” pleasure that “leaves one unsatisfied.”

“Let us provide the exquisiteness, and hope that they, our consumers, continue to remain unsatisfied,” Greig wrote. “All we would want then is a larger bag to carry the money to the bank.”