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Mr. Waxman. How carefully do you monitor nicotine and alka- 

 loids during the production process? Could you identify each step 

 during the production process, starting with the harvesting of the 

 tobacco, at which RJR measures or otherwise monitors the nicotine 

 or alkaloid levels in cigarettes? 



Mr. James Johnston. Let me ask one of my associates if they 

 can better answer that than I. 



Mr. SCHINDLER. Could you repeat the question? 



Mr. Waxman. What I want to know is how carefully you monitor 

 nicotine and alkaloids during the production process, starting with 

 the harvesting of the tobacco and other measures to monitor the 

 nicotine or alkaloid levels in cigarettes? 



Mr. SCHINDLER. In our stemery, which is where we take the leaf 

 after we bring it in from the market, where we process the leaf to 

 separate stems from the end product we call strips, we take sam- 

 ples of the bale of tobacco, of stripped tobacco, and identify sugars 

 and nicotine level in those bales of tobacco. 



From there, they are then moved to various storage sheds and 

 they could be stored anywhere from 18 months to 2 years or so be- 

 fore they're actually used in the production process. The nicotine 

 level and the sugars are identified in each of those bales. 



Mr. Waxman. What use do you make of these measurements in 

 the design and manufacture of cigarettes? 



Mr. SCHINDLER, Our cigarettes are designed to deliver a tar level 

 and a taste to our consumers. Part of the taste profile is related 

 to the nicotine. I don't know if you remember earlier I talked about 

 how the moisture or the rainfall in a given year will determine the 

 concentration of the nicotine in a leaf. 



For example, in a year that's dry, you'll have a smaller leaf. 

 You'll have the same weight of nicotine, but it will be on a smaller 

 leaf and that has a much more bitter sharp taste to it. Because it's 

 an agricultural product, it varies over the years. So the nicotine 

 helps, in terms of its concentration, for the blending process to de- 

 termine its smoothness and in terms of the target taste profile in 

 the end product. 



Mr. Waxman. Mr. Johnston, given RJR's interest in quality con- 

 trol, is there a point in the manufacturing process where nicotine 

 which is lost due to processing is restored and could you identify 

 each of the manufacturing procedures utilized by your company to 

 adjust upwards, however incrementally, the nicotine level of your 

 product? 



Mr. SCHINDLER. Yes. 



Mr. Waxman. I'm sorry. 



Mr. SCHINDLER. We do not restore any nicotine anywhere in our 

 process. We lose nicotine in the process. We lose nicotine, for exam- 

 ple, in the reconstituted sheet process, which handles the bj^rod- 

 ucts from that stemery that I just discussed. Typically, the byprod- 

 ucts that enter into the reconstituted sheet process might have 1 

 percent nicotine and by the time they finish the reconstituted sheet 

 process, they would be at 0.85. There's somewhere around a 10 or 

 15 percent loss there. 



So, generally, throughout the process, from the time we take our 

 tobacco in, you will find a loss of nicotine and no where in that 

 process is any nicotine being incrementally added into the process. 



