Next steps for the regulation of cigarettes

Bill King and Ron Borland

Possibilities for regulating cigarettes

1. Regulate to attempt to reduce toxicity

– Emission limits.

2. Regulate to attempt to reduce addictiveness

– Nicotine limits.

3. Regulate to attempt to reduce attractiveness, especially illusions of reduced harmfulness.

– Restrict engineering and additives that help mask inherent signs of toxicity, and/or make the cigarettes taste better than they otherwise would

Toxin reduction

• Responsibility of companies and regulators

• Combustion sets limits to possible amount

• Requires selective filtration

• If there were any easy solutions , the industry would have adopted them

Reduction in addictiveness

• Phase out the nicotine– Prohibition by stealth, unless viable alternative

source– NRT and/or smokeless tobacco

• An agenda worth considering– But lots of research needed on viability

Reinventing the “gasper”

• Cigarettes used to be little more than tobacco rolled in paper

• Large numbers of additives to enhance flavour, facilitate inhalation of smoke etc

• Filter ventilation key engineering feature that dilutes smoke, making it seem “lighter”

• All plausibly add to consumer appeal, and are unnecessary

Low tar Australia

• Australia took the ‘low tar’ harm reduction strategy further than any other country

• The system of ‘tar bands’, with six prescribed categories, enabled the industry to produce a huge variety of ‘mild’ brands

• Six varieties for major brand families

• Most countries have only regular/ light/ ultra light for major brand families

The Winfield brand family 2005

• Nominal tar: 1mg 2mg 4mg 6mg 8mg 12mg 16mg

• % ventilation: 81 73 62 45 34 18 3

How do you get so much variety in tar yields and taste?

• Simple: filter ventilation

• Without filter ventilation you couldn’t produce more than 2 or 3 distinguishable varieties.

Post ‘Lights’ Australia

• As of March 2006 Australian cigarette brands no longer have:– tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide figures on-pack

(replaced by qualitative warnings)– Mild or Light descriptors in brand names

• Labelling/ descriptions have changed – replaced by Smooth and Fine descriptors and

colour schemes– But, we assume, actual cigarettes remain the same

Mild becomes rich and fine

Old T/N/CO figures and new qualitative warning

Nominal tar: 1mg 2mg 4mg 8mg 12mg 16mg

• % ventilation: 81 76 58 30 23 20

The PJ brand family in transition

The Marlboro brand family gets a new addition

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Mean level of endorsement of Light Benefit Scale

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The other member of the Marlboro family

• Menthol flavouring also creates illusions of reduced harmfulness

• Menthol vapour blocks irritation receptors and stimulates cold receptors

• Why allow that?

Banning flavour additives

• There is no public health reason to allow flavour additives

• However, apart from menthol and ‘candy’ cigarettes, we don’t really understand the role of most additives

• We shouldn’t allow the industry to trade-off ceasing using flavour additives while being able to use engineering to manipulate flavour and harshness

• We do know that filter ventilation is being used to manipulate flavour and harshness

The mechanism of the “Lights” fraud

• Filter ventilation not only fools smokers– It also fools the ISO testing regime

• Heavily vented cigarettes test as very low tar

• Yet, within limits, deliver equivalent tar to smokers– Smokers compensate by puffing more and harder– The dilution effect is reduced at higher puff intensities

Conclusions

• While steps that have been taken to deal with the ‘low tar’ deception that may have reduced the problem, they have not ended it

• The deception is an ongoing cause of harm

• Banning filter ventilation is the most direct way to deal with the problem– This would effectively result in banning “lights”– Those that are genuinely low delivery would remain

• But few smoke them

• There is no reason to allow the current fraud to continue

International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project

http://www.itcproject.org

Major Research Support

 

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