359 

 Statement of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company 



R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. welcomes this opportunity to correct three erroneous 

 claims that have been made about Reynolds Tobacco and its products; 1) that cigarettes 

 are "addictive"; 2) that Reynolds Tobacco adds nicotine to its products; and 3) that the 

 company manipulates nicotine yields to create, maintain or satisfy "addiction " 



Attached to this testimony are four documents that the committee might find 

 helpful: 1) a February 28 letter fi-om Reynolds Tobacco's chief executive officer to Dr. 

 David Kessler, the food and drug commissioner, informing him that RJR does not add 

 nicotine to its products; 2) a March 3 letter fi-om the company's general counsel to ABC 

 News, correcting misrepresentations about the company that were made during a recent 

 "Day One" news report; 3) a March 22 preliminary report from Battelle Memorial 

 Institute, through its Battelle Columbus Operations, documenting the fact that nicotine 

 yields are not increased during RJR's tobacco reconstitution process (a final report will be 

 available within a week); and 4) a chart that tracks the industrywide reductions that have 

 occurred in cigarette "tar" and nicotine yields during the past 40 years. 



CLAIM: CIGARETTES ARE "ADDICTIVE" 



During the past several years, there have been a wide variety of attempts to 

 convince the American public that cigarettes are "addictive," and some public officials 

 have even gone so far as to put cigarettes in the same class as such truly addictive drugs as 

 heroin and cocaine. One does not have to be a trained behavioral scientist to see this is 

 not true All one needs to do is simply ask, and honestly answer, the following question: 

 "Would an airline passenger rather board a plane piloted by someone who had just had a 

 couple of beers, smoked crack, shot heroin, popped some pills or smoked some 

 cigarettes?" 



