Smoking is linked to one in five US deaths a year. But legal and technological changes are in sight to dramatically reduce nicotine, the addictive property in tobacco products.
Jump to full article: Boston (MA) Globe, 2007-07-30
Author: Diedtra Henderson, Globe Staff
Intro: Public health advocates are within striking distance of a goal that has eluded them for generations: widespread availability of cigarettes with nicotine levels that are too low to become addictive.
They are pinning their hopes on a bill sponsored by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, which would give the Food and Drug Administration sweeping regulatory authority over tobacco products.
That new power would include the ability to reduce cigarettes' harm, which many say eventually could lead to the market being flooded with cigarettes that contain less nicotine -- the chemical component that makes them addictive. While the FDA can regulate nicotine-replacement therapies now, it lacks regulatory oversight over cigarettes and smokeless tobacco, and it can't prevent tobacco sales to youths.
Already, near rolling hills where generations of North Carolina farmers have grown traditional tobacco plants, a small biotech firm has planted tobacco specially engineered to eliminate most nicotine. And tobacco research labs, like one at the University of California, are testing experimental cigarettes in hardcore smokers to see if gradually lowering nicotine helps them kick the habit.
The moves run counter to recent tobacco industry efforts that secretly boosted nicotine in cigarettes. . . .
Benowitz's aim is to reduce nicotine delivery to less than one-tenth of a milligram per cigarette, weaning smokers from the chemical responsible for their urge to light up.
A few years ago, Benowitz tested his theory in a pilot project involving 20 volunteer smokers who smoked at least 10 cigarettes per day and who had smoked at least a decade. . . .
The cigarettes, manufactured by Philip Morris USA for research purposes, look like Marlboros and contain the same levels of tar. . . .
"Three-quarters went back to their regular cigarettes," said Dr. Michael Siegel. "It was an unacceptable cigarette. People were not willing to smoke it."
That's the market peril faced by such companies as 22nd Century Ltd., a New York biotech that tinkered with tobacco to create plants that reduce nicotine levels to almost zero without raising levels of other harmful chemicals.
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Quotes from this article:
Taking constituents out of the process of combustion -- benzene and other things -- are, in fact, the greatest benefit that we can make to health.
Senator Richard Burr, R-NC, who will soon introduce a bill that would lower the level of chemicals in cigarettes that are directly linked to cancer, instead of regulating nicotine levels.
If we get into that trap, we'll be debating this issue for another 200 years. What the industry doesn't want us talking about is nicotine. That's where the profits are.
Gregory N. Connolly, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, on removing carcinogenic elements from cigarettes.
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