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ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - Decades of tobacco industry internal documents reveal numerous
acknowledgments of the addictiveness of smoking - the habit that one memo said gives
the companies a need for ``a larger bag to carry the money.''
The
documents, released for Minnesota's lawsuit against the industry, show cigarette
makers researching the health effects of smoking and studying how to increase the
nicotine kick for smokers.
But the state introduced dozens of memos and research documents generated by the tobacco companies, part of the library of millions of pages of documents the state amassed for the trial.
The state and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota seek reimbursement of $1.77 billion for Medicaid money spent treating smoking-related illnesses, plus perhaps billions more in punitive damages.
In 1972, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. researcher Claude Teague wrote
a research planning memo in which he discussed nicotine as a potent drug with a variety
of physiological effects.
``Happily for the tobacco industry, nicotine is both
habituating and unique in its variety of physiological actions,'' he wrote.
By
1978, Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co. was talking about the addictive nature of
tobacco.
``Very few consumers are aware of the effects of nicotine, i.e., its
addictive nature and that nicotine is a poison,'' said a B memo signed H.D. Steele.
A 1983 B memo outlined ideas for research projects, including the relationship
of nicotine levels to brand-switching by smokers.
``Nicotine is the addicting
agent in cigarettes,'' researcher A.J. Mellman wrote.
``Other `drugs' such
as marijuana, amphetamines and alcohol are slower and may be mood dependent,'' Greig
said. He noted that smokers of low-tar cigarettes were compensating by smoking more.
``Where do we go from here? One obvious route is to give people more nicotine as
tar is reduced.''
He quoted Oscar Wilde's 1891 novel, ``The Picture of Dorian
Gray'': ``A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite
and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want.''
Greig then wrote:
``Let us provide the exquisiteness, and hope that they, our consumers, continue to
remain unsatisfied. All we would want then is a larger bag to carry the money to
the bank.''
Tobacco researchers appeared to acknowledge the link between smoking and lung cancer as early as 1958, as detailed in this memo after British-American Tobacco Co. sent three scientists to the United States and Canada to examine industry research.
``With one exception, the individuals whom we met believed that
smoking causes lung cancer if by `causation' we mean any chain of events which leads
finally to lung cancer and which involves smoking as an indispensable link,'' the
researchers reported.
A BAT Co. memo in 1962 described
the company's own studies of the effects of nicotine on the body. ``We now possess
a knowledge of the effects of nicotine far more extensive than exists in published
scientific literature,'' a company researcher wrote.
While many of the documents refer to the addictive quality of nicotine, heads of seven tobacco companies testified under oath before Congress in 1994 that they believed nicotine was not addictive.
On Thursday, several company executives went before a congressional
committee and admitted that nicotine is addictive.
The admission came as tobacco
executives argued on behalf of a $368.5 billion settlement they negotiated in June
to end the individual state lawsuits.
01-31-98
