320 



Mr. Bliley. Let me illustrate. Number one, a supposed revela- 

 tion concerns the tar and nicotine levels in cigarettes and how they 

 have been affected by what some have called secret processes em- 

 ployed by cigarette manufacturers. 



Your testimony refers to this as manipulation, as others on this 

 subcommittee and in the media have done, claiming that, had you 

 known about companies' ability to manipulate the amount of nico- 

 tine in cigarettes, you would have regulated them. 



Mr. Califano, your 1979 Surgeon General's report devoted nu- 

 merous pages discussing the decline in tar and nicotine levels, and 

 in the preface on page 12 you noted that this decline resulted from 

 important changes in cigarette production technology, the develop- 

 ment of tobacco sheet reconstitution, improvements in cigarette fil- 

 tration and cigarette paper, the generic manipulation of tobacco 

 strains, and increased use of plant stems and other tobacco por- 

 tions formerly regarded as waste. 



Two, your testimony today also notes that had the Government 

 been privy to companies' information about the addictive nature of 

 cigarettes, the 1979 Surgeon General's report would have found 

 them addictive and would have moved to regulate them. But de- 

 spite the 1979 report's equivocation on the issue of addiction as 

 compared to the successor 1988 report, nicotine and smoking is re- 

 ferred to as an addiction in a number of places. 



For example, in the preface on page 15, your Surgeon General re- 

 port stated, and I quote, 'Tet perhaps because nicotine is a power- 

 ful addictive drug, millions of smokers seem unable to translate 

 this information into personal action." 



On page 11, your Surgeon General report stated other studies 

 suggest that very few smokers can satisfy their addiction on less 

 than 10 to 12 cigarettes daily. And on page 97 of chapter 14 your 

 report noted that nicotine has long been viewed by some persons 

 as an addictive drug. 



You then quoted the following statement from the third report of 

 the Royal College of Physicians of London, 1977, and I quote, "To- 

 bacco smoking is a form of drug dependence, different but no less 

 strong than that in other drugs of addiction." 



Three. Let's talk about some of the supposedly suppressed ciga- 

 rette company research that, had you been privy to while at HEW, 

 you would have acted differently. Despite what may be said in the 

 press, this subcommittee so far has only heard in detail from the 

 research of a former cigarette company employee. Dr. Victor 

 DeNoble. So I have to assume that his work is included in your 

 charge. However, Dr. DeNoble made clear at our last hearing that 

 his work did not prove addiction. He simply found that rats would 

 self-administer nicotine and thus that it was a positive reinforcer. 

 Let me quote from page 11 of chapter 15 of the 1979 Surgeon Gen- 

 eral's report: "Research has shown that animals may self-admin- 

 ister nicotine." 



On page 7 of chapter 16 your report referred to several works 

 that "emphasize the key role of nicotine as a reinforcer." 



On page 7 of chapter 15 the 1979 report stated, "Whether or not 

 nicotine is the only reinforcing agent, it is still the most powerful 

 pharmacological agent in cigarette smoke." Nicotine's role as a pri- 

 mary reinforcer is referred to throughout the report. 



