568 



general reduction possible. By utilizing one or more of these techniques, cigarette 

 manufacturers can offer smokers a variety of cigarettes with a range of "tar" and nicotine 

 levels. Cigarette designers have been so successful in their efforts to respond to the demand 

 for these reductions that today there are commercially available cigarettes that yield "tar" 

 and nicotine at levels so low they cannot be measured reliably by the FTC's standard 

 procedure.^ In 1979, the Surgeon General listed more than 25 different design techniques 

 that reduce yields of "tar" and nicotine.'* Each of these techniques has been well-publicized 

 and known to the goverrunent, public health, scientific and even lay communities. A brief 

 analysis of these design achievements demonstrates the effectiveness of general reduction 

 methods to achieve lower yields of "tar" and other smoke constituents. 



The earliest developments included the cellulose acetate filter, use of porous paper, 

 and use of reconstituted tobacco. Each of these developments was in place by 1965, and 

 "tar" and nicotine yields had been reduced dramatically. After 1965, the principal design 



' See. £^, Federal Trade Commission, 'Tar," Nicotine and Carbon Monoxide in the 

 Smoke of 207 Varieties of Domestic Cigarettes 2-3 (1985). 



* Public Health Service, U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Smoking 

 and Health: A Report of the Surgeon General 14:110 (1979) ("1979 Surgeon 

 General's Report"). The techniques identified in the 1979 Surgeon General's Report 

 were genetics and breeding of tobacco plants, planting density, nitrate fertilization, 

 applying agriailtural chemicals, topping the tobacco plant at different stages, altering 

 the type of tobacco, altering the position of the stalk, changing the nitrate content, 

 selecting tobacco with specific constituents (e. g .. proteins, carbohydrates, resins), 

 curing, homogenized leaf curing, grading, fermentation, solvent extraction, tobacco 

 expansion (freeze-drying), additives, blending, changing the amount of tobacco, 

 changing the amount of tobacco stems, utilizing varying amounts of reconstituted 

 tobacco, using expanded tobacco, varying the tobacco cut, using porous cigarette 

 paper, perforating the cigarette paper, smoke filtration, and perforating the filter tips. 

 Jd. at 14:108-14. 



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