Volume 1
The tobacco industry and the health risks of smoking : second report / Health Committee.
- Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Health Committee
- Date:
- 2000
Licence: Open Government Licence
Credit: The tobacco industry and the health risks of smoking : second report / Health Committee. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![47. In written evidence Gallaher drew attention to the fact that, whereas the US Surgeon General’s report of 1964 characterised smoking as “an habituation rather than an addiction”, in 1988 he concluded that cigarettes and other forms of tobacco were addicting.’ The conclusion that Gallaher came to was that “the meaning of addiction has been given such a wide interpretation in today’s society that it can encompass almost any type of behaviour, including smoking”.” Mr Broughton of BAT similarly referred to the two definitions produced by the US Surgeon General. He contended that efforts by manufacturers to alter the nicotine:tar ratio so that smokers got more nicotine with reduced tar had not satisfied their consumers.”? Nicotine he described as having a “mild” pharmacological effect “ona par with caffeine”.” In its written memorandum BAT argued that “people say they are addicted to particular foods, using the internet, taking exercise, watching certain television programmes, or even to working”.”° 48. We asked Mr Broughton to expand on why his company had included such comparisons. He told us that ‘““What the memorandum is trying to do is to say that we can get bogged down in semantics. There is a real danger that the current popular definition of addiction can be used for all sorts of things and not differentiate sufficiently between them. It does cover things like the internet. I think it is quite wrong to cover that ...”.°° But in his opening remarks to us, Mr Broughton demonstrated exactly why precision 1s essential in discriminating between habits and pharmacological addiction: “Let us just accept for the sake of moving forward that the popular understanding today is that smoking is addictive. Nevertheless our customers are not fools nor helpless addicts ...”.”’ In our view, Mr Broughton’s statement here shows just how dangerous and misleading the semantic vagueness which he purportedly decries can be: having indicated his unhappiness with the vagueness of the term “addiction” he then glibly exploits it. His confident assertion that his customers are not “helpless addicts” only makes sense if the addictiveness of smoking “in the popular understanding,” which he apparently accepts, excludes pharmacological dependence. The TMA and the Harrogate Research facility 49. The memorandum from the Tobacco Manufacturers’ Association outlines the research conducted by, or on behalf of, the industry.” It notes that in 1954, following the announcement by the Minister of Health referred to above,” the tobacco companies funded a research grant of £250,000 to the Medical Research Council (MRC) to enable further investigation into smoking and health issues. The companies did not control the projects selected by the MRC for funding. The Tobacco Manufacturers’ Standing Committee (TMSC), established in 1956, had no control and attached “no strings” to the grantees of the MRC controlled money. In 1959 it decided to implement research which it could direct itself and opened a purpose-built laboratory in Harrogate in September 1962. The TMA’s evidence states that “the programme was concerned to investigate which, if any, properties of tobacco products might be responsible for the reported health risks associated with smoking, and how the products might be modified to reduce such risks”. The Tobacco Research Council (TRC) succeeded the TMSC in 1963 to reflect the fact that the TMSC had decided “to conduct its own smoking and health research programme”.'’ The core activity of the TRC, conducted at Harrogate, was to “obtain as much information as possible about the chemical nature of smoke” by means of a mouse skin-painting programme to measure “biological activity” in mouse skin caused by cigarette smoke condensate.'®! By 1969 “the major part of the TRC’s research effort at Harrogate was concerned with the search for compounds in cigarette smoke with potential biological activity by fractionating the whole smoke and cigarette smoke” [ie breaking it down into its constituent parts]. The research was abandoned in 1970; the published review of activities noted: “this work ... has been taken as far as it profitably can.”'” Ev., p.184. Ev., p.184. Q550. ss FP3. ok written evidence BAT described the pharmacological effects of nicotine as “milder than ... coffee”. See Vi, Dildo: Evaipel 53, S75. °7 388. Ev., pp.269-72. Ev., p.269. lOO Fy. p.270. BY p.271. AN ee gf 99](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b32221083_0001_0032.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
