Chemicals Increase Smoking's Grip - Report
07/14/99
Tobacco companies have been adding chemicals to cigarettes to enhance their flavor and make them more addictive, a new report said Wednesday.
The joint report by British charity Imperial Cancer Research Fund (ICRF), the anti-smoking group ASH and the U.S. state of Massachusetts revealed more than 60 tobacco industry documents dealing with the use of additives in cigarettes.
"They have taken a traditional tobacco product and turned it into a high delivery nicotine product,'' Dr Gregory Connolly, the director of the Massachusetts Tobacco Control Program, told a news conference to launch the report.
Additives are being used to initiate young people into smoking and to speed the delivery of nicotine to the brain, he added.
The report is based on internal tobacco industry documents about the use of additives which were released during recent tobacco court cases in the United States.
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