66 



Mr. Wyden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 



Mr. Waxman. Thank you, Mr. Wyden. I am going to follow up on 

 that and take a second round. 



It is obvious that the level is being controlled and manipulated. 

 If we know that nicotine can be removed from tobacco completely, 

 if we know it can be removed and it is not being removed and we 

 know that the tobacco industry, or at least one company, did a 

 study that told them that nicotine was the addictive quality in 

 their product, if there is no reason for nicotine other than for addic- 

 tion, then all this manipulation is to addict people to smoking. 



People are being manipulated. I don't see that there is any other 

 conclusion that we could reach. 



Isn't that true. Dr. Kessler, at that point? 



Mr. Kessler. Why is nicotine at levels that are addictive in ciga- 

 rettes? That is the question that needs to be answered. 



Mr. Waxman. And I want to commend you on your testimony. 

 This is really very powerful testimony. I think it is historic. Never 

 in this country have we understood what was going on with the to- 

 bacco industry, and we are only getting a little whiff of it, so to 

 speak, a little bit that we are seeing from your testimony. 



We know the tobacco companies have tobacco that has nicotine 

 in it. We have always thought that. But the tobacco companies can 

 exogenously, endogenously manipulate and play with those levels. 

 They spray it on. 



Mr. Kessler. Andrew, do you have the reference cigarettes over 

 the last number of years, over a period of time? You think that it 

 is just tobacco leaves in a cigarette. These are just four examples, 

 and they are done as reference cigarettes. And you can see that you 

 can achieve, you have a lot of different tools to achieve whatever 

 level of nicotine you want. 



There is lamina, there is stem, there is puff, there is reconsti- 

 tuted. There are different types of tobacco. You can set nicotine lev- 

 els with great care, 



Mr. Waxman. So they can do this — let me ask you about some 

 of these points, because those patents are really astounding. You 

 indicated they can change the blend. You indicated that they can 

 take nicotine and spray it on later. 



Mr. Kessler. Patents shows that they can do that, yes. 



Mr. Waxman. The patents show that they can do something with 

 the filter; isn't that correct? They can add nicotine to the filter it- 

 self? 



Mr. Kessler. Andrew, do you have the chart of the patent on the 

 filter? I was a little surprised to see patents that actually had as 

 their purpose to add nicotine to other parts of the cigarette. Why 

 would you want to add nicotine to the filter? Why would you want 

 to add nicotine to the wrapper? I think it raises questions. 



Again, Mr. Chairman, it is very important that we be careful. 

 These are patents. And I cannot sit here today and tell you which 

 patents are 



Mr. Waxman. The point is, you can't tell us whether they use 

 these patents, but it shows that the industry has carefully looked 

 for ways of playing around with the nicotine levels in their prod- 

 ucts and they have even added it potentially through the filter 

 paper itself. 



