63 



There is another way to get a lower FTC rating than smokers ac- 

 tually get. 



Part of the filter paper — and Grunberg has done this work — ex- 

 tends out over the smoking rod. It is called the overwrap. There is 

 actually tobacco under that overwrap. And the smoking machine, 

 the instructions are to stop three millimeters before that overwrap. 

 But smokers can smoke that tobacco. 



If you are a cigarette manufacturer and you wanted to have a 

 yield that was low, but still had enough tobacco in there for what- 

 ever reason, what would you do? That overwrap, as Grunberg has 

 documented in the Surgeon General's reports, has increased. 



The FTC described this as sort of a Type 2 error. It is not that 

 there is anything wrong with the smoking machine; it is just that 

 there is technology that has been advanced for whatever reason 

 that undermines the usefulness of the machine measurements. 



One other technology is to increase the burning rate, which de- 

 creases the number of puffs the machine takes. All those tech- 

 nologies basically mean that what you are getting in your body 

 doesn't correlate, and Benowitz did very eloquent work in 1983 and 

 subsequent years that shows what you are getting in your body 

 doesn't correlate with the FTC yields; and I think there is room for 

 improvement so that people who want information can get reliable 

 information. 



Mr. Synar. Thank you. Dr. Kessler. 



Mr. Waxman. Mr. Wyden. 



Mr. Wyden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 



And, Dr. Kessler, let me commend you, as my colleagues have 

 done, for an excellent job. I suspect folks at home in Oregon are 

 not following all the nuances of exogenous and endogenous and the 

 like, but I want to tell you what is the bottom line for me and see 

 if you agree with this proposition. 



The bottom line to me is that it appears that nicotine is taken 

 out during the production process and then deliberately put back 

 in later on. And when it is deliberately put back in, it, in effect, 

 hooks the American public and hooks the smokers of our country. 

 Would you agree with that? 



Mr. Kessler. You can hook someone. Congressman, just by tak- 

 ing 10 different tobacco blends and adjusting the levels. There is 

 no difference whether it is reconstituted, or tobacco extract, or you 

 are mixing the blends. In the end, the issue is how are those levels 

 being controlled? You can increase levels, you can decrease levels 

 many different ways. 



What concerns us is that the levels of nicotine in cigarettes is in 

 excess of what is necessary to create and sustain an addiction. It 

 is irrelevant to our analysis how the nicotine — whether it is the re- 

 constituted tobacco, or whether it is the blend, the issue is how is 

 that level set and why is that level set in such a way that it is in 

 excess of what is necessary to addict — to sustain and support an 

 addiction? 



Mr. Wyden. In today's Washington Post, Steven Parrish, the 

 Vice President of Philip Morris, makes the admission that Philip 

 Morris is adding nicotine to cigarettes. Is this, on its face, an ad- 

 mission that cigarette manufacturers are in the drug business and 

 therefore subject to regulation under the 1938 Act? 



