Nicotine ills

Disturbing evidence has emerged from the United States that tobacco companies there have deliberately made their products more…

Disturbing evidence has emerged from the United States that tobacco companies there have deliberately made their products more addictive in order to counteract the effect of public health anti-smoking programmes and to maximise their profits.

A study conducted over a seven-year period by scientists at the Harvard School of Public Health found that the major tobacco companies had increased the nicotine "hit" in their cigarettes by 11 per cent between 1995 and 2005.

There is no evidence that similar disreputable practices have been adopted here. That is because no baseline studies are available. But the tobacco firms identified in the Harvard report control subsidiary companies that supply much of the Irish and British markets. And suspicion concerning their behaviour on this side of the Atlantic must be raised by these findings. Tobacco companies are highly secretive about the content of their products and, in the past, have refused to supply such information to government agencies.

The US firms dismissed the findings as "random variations", even though there was a consistent, yearly increase in the nicotine content of their products. In addition, the study found that cigarettes had been redesigned to increase the number of puffs per unit, thereby increasing the nicotine intake of the smoker. The chance of such "random variations" occurring was estimated at one-in-a-thousand.

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We should not be surprised by the behaviour of tobacco firms. They have lied consistently down the years about the dangers of their products. It has been estimated that half a million people die from tobacco-related illnesses within the European Union every year, with a fatality rate in Ireland amounting to about 6,000 victims.

Recent recommendations from the Office of Tobacco Control drew a positive response from the Government. Restrictions on the advertising and sale of tobacco products were introduced with young people in mind. And a hefty 50 cent was slapped on a packet of 20 cigarettes in the Budget. That is the way to go. Nicotine addiction destroys lives and imposes huge costs on the economy through health charges and lost productivity.

The Government's public health programme and a ban on smoking in the workplace brought about a fall in tobacco consumption. But nearly one-in-four people still smoke. And young people are particularly vulnerable. That is why any increase in the nicotine content of cigarettes would be extremely dangerous. The Government should arrange for an early comparison of Irish and US tobacco products in terms of their addictive properties.