155 



sense; (4) A psychmotor habit for the release of body tension; and (5) For the phar- 

 macological effect of smoke constituents. 



I might mention one other explanation, not because anybody believes it but as an 

 example of how distorted one's reasoning can become when under the influence of 

 psychoanalytic theory. Smoking according to this argument, is the consequence of 

 pvUmonary eroticism. Translated, this means the lungs have become sexualized and 

 smoking is but another form of the sexual act. 



If one asks the smoker himself why he smokes, he is most likely to say "Its a 

 habit." If he is intelligent enough, he might be more to the point and say either one 

 of two things: "It stimulates me", or "It relaxes me". And now we are edready deep 

 into our topic. The polarity of these two obsen^ations has plagued investigators for 

 50 years. The challenge to any theorv as to why people smoke lies in the theory's 

 ability to resolve this paradoxical duality of effect. 



The St. Martin conference was called by the Council for Tobacco Research, U.S.A., 

 in an effort to goad the scientific community into having another go at the problem. 

 And go at it they did. Much of what follows in this presentation comes from that 

 St. Martin conference. 



Most of the conferees would agree with this proposition: The primary incentive 

 to cigarette smoking is the immediate salutory effect of inhaled smoke upon body 

 function. This not to suggest that this effect is the only incentive. Cigarette smoking 

 is so pervasive of life style that it is inevitable that other secondary incentives 

 should become operative. The conference summarizer. Prof Seymour Katy of Har- 

 vard, used eating as an analogy. Elaborate behavioral rituals, taste preferences, and 

 social institutions have been built around the elemental act of eating, to such an 

 extent that we find pleasure in eating even when not hungry. 



It would be difficult for any of us to imagine the fate of eating, were there not 

 ever any nutritive gain involved. It would be even more provocative to speculate 

 about the fate of sex without orgasm. I'd rather not think about it. 



As with eating and copulating, so it is with smoking. The physiological effect 

 serves as the primary incentive; all other incentives are secondary'. 



The majority of the conferees would go even further and accept the proposition 

 that nicotine is the active constituent of cigarette smoke. Without nicotine, the argu- 

 ment goes, there would be no smoking. Some strong evidence can be marshalled to 

 support this argument: 



(1) No one has ever become a cigarette smoker by smoking cigarettes without nic- 

 otine. 



(2) Most of the physiological responses to inhaled smoke have been shown to be 

 nicotine-related. 



(3) Despite many low nicotine brand entries into the marketplace, none of them 

 have captured a substantial segment of the market. In fact, critics of the industry 

 would do well to reflect upon the indifference of the consumer to the industr/s ef- 

 forts to sell low-delivery brands. 94 percent of the cigarettes sold in the U.S. deliver 

 more than 1 mg. of nicotine. 98.5 percent deliver more than .9 mg. The physiological 

 response to nicotine can readily be elicited by cigarettes delivenng in the range of 

 1 mg. of nicotine. 



I hope our English fiiends who are developing the ssTithetic nicotineless cigarette 

 arent going to be too disturbed by all this. 



Why then is there not a market for nicotine per se, to be eaten, sucked, drunk, 

 injected, inserted or inhaled as a pure aerosol? The answer, and I feel quite strongly 

 about this, is that the cigarette is in fact among the most awe-inspinng examples 

 of the ingenuity of man. Let me explain my conviction. 



The cigarette should be conceived not as a product but as a package. The product 

 is nicotine. The cigarette is but one of many package layers. There is the carton, 

 which contains the pack, which contains the cigarette, which contains the smoke. 

 The smoke is the final package. The smoker must strip off all these package layers 

 to get to that which he seeks. 



But consider for a moment what 200 years of trial and error designing has 

 brought in the way of nicotine packaging: 



Think of the cigarette pack as a storage container for a day's supply of nicotine: 



(1) It is unobtrusively portable. 



(2) Its contents are instantly accessible. Think of the cigarette as a dispenser for 

 a dose unit of nicotine: 



(1) It is readily prepped for dispensing nicotine. 



(2) Its rate of combustion meters the dispensing rate, setting an upper safe limit 

 for a substance that can be toxic in large doses. 



(3) Dispensing is unobtrusive to most ongoing behavior. 

 Think of a puff of smoke as the vehicle of nicotine: 



