Industry Papers Talk of Nicotine’s Addictiveness

A Stanford University professor testifying Tuesday in Minnesota’s landmark anti-tobacco case said internal documents spanning five decades show that tobacco firms have long understood that nicotine is addictive and that without it “there would be no cigarette business.”

On a day in which nearly 30 documents were put before jurors, Channing R. Robertson, a professor of chemical engineering, said the papers establish that cigarette makers keenly understood “that they were in the drug delivery business. . . . They stated that their product is nicotine and not tobacco.”

Most of the documents discussed Tuesday had never seen the light of day; a few others were previously introduced in the case or made public before trial. The papers, which span the years 1952 to 1991, were obtained by lawyers for the state from all four of the major defendants in the case--cigarette makers Philip Morris; R.J. Reynolds; Brown & Williamson and its corporate parent, BAT Industries; and Lorillard.

Although the impact on jurors is unknown, the papers are unquestionably the most detailed evidence ever presented in court to support claims that cigarette makers over the years have concealed their knowledge of the addictiveness of smoking.

David Bernick, a lawyer for Brown & Williamson, said after court recessed Tuesday that the documents offered little new. “They’ve said . . . nicotine is pharmacologically active,” he said. “People have known that for over 200 years.” Until recently, tobacco executives have staunchly denied their products were addictive. In something of a reversal, four of five tobacco chief executives testified last week before Congress that nicotine could be considered addictive under the current meaning of the term.

However, the industry has always maintained that nicotine is an incidental ingredient of tobacco and not something they manipulate or control to keep smokers hooked--a proposition Robertson disputed Tuesday.

“This is a pharmaceutical [industry] talking to us,” he told jurors.

Among the documents:

* An April 1980 memo by a team of BAT scientists that said, “BAT should learn to look at itself as a drug company rather than as a tobacco company.”

* A February 1969 memo in which a Philip Morris researcher asked: “Do we really want to tout cigarette smoke as a drug? It is, of course.”

* An August 1980 memo by a top Philip Morris scientist that said, “I believe the thing we sell most is nicotine.”

* A May 1991 R.J. Reynolds report that said: “We are basically in the nicotine business. . . . Effective control of nicotine in our products should equate to a significant product performance and cost advantage.”

* An August 1979 memo by BAT on the search for a potential replacement for cigarettes. “We are searching explicitly for a socially acceptable addictive product,” the memo said. “The essential constituent is most likely to be nicotine or a direct’ substitute for it.”

Robertson’s testimony will continue today in the 2-week-old case, in which the state and Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Minnesota are seeking an estimated $1.77 billion in reimbursement for smoking-related health-care costs.