Smoking and Tobacco Control Monograph No. 7 
Subsequent to the PHS statement, FTC reversed its decision banning tar 
and nicotine claims in advertising and established a standardized testing ^ 
protocol for assessing tar and nicotine yields. Today that protocol is widely i 
known as the FTC test method. In 1980 the protocol was broadened to i 
include measurement of the carbon monoxide yields of cigarettes as well. i 
The initial protocol adopted by FTC was largely based on the work of | 
U.S. Department of Agriculture chemist C.L. Ogg, as published in the Journal '■ 
of the Association of Official Agricultural Chemists in 1964. It appears, however, j 
that this protocol was based on one person's observations about how people j 
smoked. i 
1 
Much the same protocol had been proposed by American Tobacco | 
Company researchers in 1936. Writing in the July issue of Industrial and ^ 
Engineering Chemistry, J.A. Bradford and colleagues noted, "The present i 
writer's arbitrarily selected rate is a 35-cc puff of 2-second duration taken I 
once a minute." i 
However, cigarettes consumed at that time were vastly different from I 
those manufactured and marketed later. In fact, tar and nicotine levels j 
began to decline during the 1950's, concurrent with the mass marketing of 
filter cigarettes. Market share of filter cigarettes increased from almost zero | 
in 1950 (0.6 percent of the market) to 50 percent by decade's end. Total | 
cigarette sales, which had begun to decline after the first public statements | 
about the hazards of smoking in the early 1950's, rebounded to new highs. ! 
i 
Although filter efficiency may have contributed to some of the reduction I 
in tar/nicotine yields in the 1950's, the decline resulted mostly from less I 
tobacco being used to make filtered as opposed to unfiltered cigarettes. 
However, during the 1960's and 1970's major cigarette design changes 
resulted in significantly lower machine-measured cigarette yields. The j 
changes included increased use of ventilated tobacco rods and filters, I 
use of more porous cigarette papers, and increased use of expanded and | 
reconstituted tobacco. Concurrent with these modifications in cigarette i 
design, cigarette manufacturers increasingly made use of additives in | 
manufacturing. Today about 600 different compounds are routinely j 
added to domestic cigarette brands, yet no routine testing is performed , 
to determine whether these compounds pose any additional health risk j 
to the smoker when they are burned in a cigarette. [ 
U.S. market share of cigarettes yielding 15 mg tar or less went from I 
3.6 percent in 1970 to 44.8 percent by 1980. The sales-weighted average tar 
and nicotine yields of all U.S. cigarettes are now approximately 12 mg tar and i. 
0.9 mg nicotine. By comparison, sales-weighted yields in the early 1950's | 
were 35 mg tar and 2.5 mg nicotine. j 
As consumption of low-yield cigarettes began to proliferate, the public 
health community became concerned that these products were not what 
they seemed, increasingly, scientific studies documented that smokers who 
switched to these low-yield products smoked them differently, thus negating 
IV 
