Are tobacco companies increasing the nicotine content in cigarettes?
It may seem absurd, or perhaps just a little over-the-top conspiratorial, to think that while major cigarette companies have been paying millions for anti-smoking campaigns, they’ve been secretly increasing cigarettes’ nicotine content to make them more addictive. But that’s exactly what two separate studies, one by the Massachussetts Department of Public Health and the other by the Harvard School of Public Health, have found. The results of the most recent research, published in January 2007, show that nicotine levels in cigarettes from all major manufacturers increased 11 percent from 1997 to 2005. Cigarette manufacturers deny the results of the studies. Philip Morris in particular claims that natural variations in the nicotine content of the tobacco plant can account for the variations found in both studies, and that the variations go both ways. Ultimately, the company says, the nicotine concentrations over a large enough number of years balances out. This was the primary argument m
It may seem absurd, or perhaps just a little over-the-top conspiratorial, to think that while major cigarette companies have been paying millions for anti-smoking campaigns, they’ve been secretly increasing cigarettes’ nicotine content to make them more addictive. But that’s exactly what two separate studies, one by the Massachussetts Department of Public Health and the other by the Harvard School of Public Health, have found. The results of the most recent research, published in January 2007, show that nicotine levels in cigarettes from all major manufacturers increased 11 percent from 1997 to 2005. Cigarette manufacturers deny the results of the studies. Philip Morris in particular claims that natural variations in the nicotine content of the tobacco plant can account for the variations found in both studies, and that the variations go both ways. Ultimately, the company says, the nicotine concentrations over a large enough number of years balances out. This was the primary argument m
