Golden Holocaust by Robert N. Proctor

Author:Robert N. Proctor [Proctor, Robert N.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 2011-04-15T05:00:00+00:00

ENGINEERING ELASTICITY

The principal response to the threat of weaning, however, has been to design cigarettes in such a way that smokers could obtain however much nicotine they wanted, even from cigarettes rated low in tar and nicotine. (Here again the distinction between nicotine content and nicotine delivery is crucial, since “low delivery” cigarettes usually contain the same amount of nicotine as regulars—typically about 10 milligrams in the actual rod—even though they deliver less when measured on smoking robots.) Several different methods have been developed to enable this “elasticity,” but the most important involve placing ventilation slits close to the mouth where they can easily—and unconsciously—be covered by the smoker’s lips or fingers. The phenomenon is known as “occlusion,” “hole-blocking,” “obturation,” or “lip drape” and eventually becomes a key aspect of cigarette design.53

When did the industry realize that smokers could use such methods to defeat ventilation? The companies must have known from the beginning that ventilation could be gamed, but the first known studies attempting to quantify this effect date from the mid-1960s. Philip Morris’s Project 1600 was an important locus for such inquiries, and the project’s 1966 Annual Report makes it clear that smokers of low-delivery cigarettes (“health filter smokers”) were adjusting their puff volume—taking larger puffs—to obtain a constant smoke intake. Additional measurements were done the following year, as part of an effort to see whether smokers might be covering up the ventilation holes. William Dunn at Philip Morris supervised a number of such studies, exploring the extent to which “lipping behavior” might be compromising ventilation. Dunn and his colleagues had found that “partial occlusion of air holes” was “likely among many smokers when the holes are placed in an 8 to 10mm band, measuring from the outer end of the tipping.” They also commented on how ventilation holes were most commonly being placed at about 8 to 10 millimeters from the mouth end of the cigarette—precisely where smokers could easily cover them up. The take-home message was clear: “We submit these results as further evidence that smokers adjust puff intake in order to maintain constant smoke intake.”54

Over the next several years Philip Morris produced dozens of internal reports on vent hole “occlusion.” William Dunn at Philip Morris was a leader here; in an operation given the code name Project Pandora he and his technical staff designed elaborate setups to photograph smokers as they covered the holes. In one instance the holes were so small that the cameramen had trouble getting clear shots, so they ended up having to mark the holes with ink to see when they were being covered. The researchers didn’t want the subjects to know what was being measured, so a “cover story” was invented about the photographers needing something to focus on.55 Studies of this sort showed that people smoking cigarettes with highly ventilated tips end up unconsciously covering the holes with their lips or fingers, allowing them to extract more nicotine.

The industry regarded this as part of the more general phenomenon of compensation, also referred to as “adaptation,” “titration behavior,” or “self-dosing.

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