Smoking and Tobacco Control Monograph No. 7 
the ban on tar and nicotine claims in advertising was lifted, the FTC basically 
prohibited any health claims in the advertising. So, what you are seeing is 
really what consumers are inferring from the low-tar and -nicotine systems. 
The other thing that we have focused on and thought about in this area is 
the fact that the Government's position for many, many years has been that 
people who are concerned about their health should stop smoking. There 
is actually a warning on the packages right now that says that. Stopping 
smoking now increases your health, but it is a very difficult communications 
conundrum, as Dr. Shiftman has indicated, about whether you can talk about 
relative risk from tar and nicotine and not send an unintended message that 
Dr. Woosley is talking about, that this is the better way to go. 
DR. FREEMAN: Yes, Dr. Kozlowski? 
DR. KOZLOWSKI: I think it is pretty clear that smokers currently are turning 
to so-called "light" and "ultralight" brands, believing that they are doing 
themselves a favor with respect to their health. 1 think there is a real concern 
about health-conscious smokers who want to try to do something. They now 
have the impression: How could a light cigarette kill anybody; how could 
an ultralight cigarette kill anybody, and there is no deadly connotation to 
the terms "light" or "ultralight." By providing better information the hope 
is that some of the people who out of health concerns are turning to lower 
yield cigarettes will see something of the risks of that, and they may be in a 
fool's paradise, and they maybe should stop altogether. The pamphlet that 
was passed out in an earlier version about 10 years ago was titled "Tar and 
Nicotine Ratings May Be Hazardous to Your Health: Information for Smokers 
Who Aren't Ready to Quit Yet." A smoker who is smoking a 1-mg tar 
cigarette and enjoying it may think, "My God, 1 am smoking the lowest 
yield cigarette on the market; how could that do me any harm? 1 have really 
done something." If that smoker then sees, "1 blocked the vent holes," and 
so on and so on, the hope is that becomes an inducement to stop. 1 think 
you expressed some reservations about use of the term "consumers," but 1 
think it is important that continuing smokers be treated in part as consumers 
and be given information similar to what consumers have expected about 
automobiles and things like that. 
DR. COHEN: Could 1 follow up with some numbers? 1 have some evidence 
exactly on the point that you just made, and it may be useful to the panel to 
hear the evidence. 1 apologize, again, because you couldn't read the numbers 
so clearly yesterday. In my survey, 83 percent of those smoking 1- to 5-mg tar 
cigarettes thought that switching from a 20-mg tar cigarette to a 5-mg tar 
cigarette would significantly lower that person's health risks due to smoking 
for someone who smokes a pack a day. More than 25 percent of those 
smoking cigarettes with 6 or more mg of tar thought that switching from a 
20-mg tar cigarette to a 16-mg tar cigarette would significantly lower that 
person's health risk due to smoking for someone who smokes a pack a day. 
DR. DEBFTHIZY: I would not be surprised at that because the Surgeon 
General said in 1981 that if you reduced your tar intake, you reduce risk. 
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