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STATEMENT OF JOHN SLADE 



March 25, 1994 Page 2 



Mr. Chairman, members of the Subcommittee, my name is John 

 Slade. I am an internist specializing in addiction medicine. I 

 am a member of the Department of Medicine at the Robert Wood 

 Johnson Medical School of the University of Medicine and 

 Dentistry of New Jersey and am the chairman of the Committee on 

 Nicotine Dependence of the American Society of Addiction 

 Medicine. My professional work largely involves the clinical and 

 public health aspects of addictions, especially addiction to 

 nicotine . 



Cigarettes cause more illness and death in the United States 

 than anything else (USDHHS, 1989) . The nicotine in cigarettes 

 makes cigarettes addictive. Cigarette manufacturers know their 

 customers want nicotine, and their products are designed to 

 deliver nicotine. The evidence presented here will show that 

 cigarette manufacturers intend to affect the function of their 

 customers' bodies. This, in turn, provides a basis for 

 regulation of cigarettes as drugs under the Food, Drug and 

 Cosmetic Act. Moreover, they intend to sustain addiction to 

 nicotine in customers dependent on the drug. 



What causes cigarette smoking? The cause of smoking is not 

 advertising, it is not low price, it is not widespread 

 availability of the -product, it is not smoking by family members, 

 and it is not peer pressure. These things (among the others 

 described as risk factors in the 1994 Surgeon General's Report 

 {USDHHS, 1994)) facilitate the development of smoking, but they 

 are not themselves causal . The fundamental cause of cigarette 



