722 



It defies anybody's understanding of a concentration of a higher 

 level of nicotine in a cigarette. It may or may not be reflected in 

 the smoke. It could be different in the FTC numbers as opposed to 

 the concentration in the cigarette. And both of those can be dif- 

 ferent than what the smoker, in fact, inhales. Is that correct? 



Mr. Spears. Let's start fundamentally. Understand that if you 

 have the concentration, you must also know the amount of tobacco 

 in the cigarette in order to determine how much nicotine is in the 

 tobacco column of the cigarette. The paper does not discuss the to- 

 bacco weight levels in these very low tar cigarettes, low nicotine 

 cigarettes, versus the others that I talk about. 



So the starting premise that you can relate directly concentration 

 to what is in the smoke is incorrect. Further, what is in the smoke 

 is modified by the construction of the cigarette, the filter, the air 

 tip ventilation and so forth. These are the important determinants 

 of what the nicotine and tar will be. 



The differences between the blend concentrations in that paper 

 are totally insignificant in terms of what ends up in the smoke. 



Mr. Waxman. I have an article that I'm going to have distributed 

 to you. It's Exhibit 21. It's an article by Dr. Neal Benowitz, M.D., 

 and others, "Smokers of Low Yield Cigarettes Do Not Consume 

 Less Nicotine" is the title. He shows in his graph — wait a minute. 



This article is from the New England Journal of Medicine and 

 without objection, it will be made part of the record as Exhibit No. 

 2L 



[Exhibit 21 follows:] 



