RJR Dropped a Safer Cigarette in 1990s

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. in the 1990s developed a cigarette intended to reduce disease-causing chemicals and then dropped it because it wasn’t accepted by smokers, the company’s chief of product development testified.

Jeffery Gentry, who led the team that developed a reduced-risk cigarette known internally as EW, said he believed until at least 1999 that the product, which had a carbon-scrubber filter and a low-nitrogen tobacco blend, should be on the market.

The Justice Department claims that cigarette companies conspired to resist the development and marketing of safer products to avoid admitting to the public that smoking is dangerous.