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NEWS: The tobacco additives that keep you hooked

phase_dancer

phase_dancer

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The tobacco additives that keep you hooked
By Rosie Waterhouse
(Filed: 28/07/2003)


Additives in cigarettes may make some brands far more addictive than others, according to research.

For the first time, scientists have measured the amount of super-addictive "freebase" nicotine cigarettes deliver to the smoker.

Like crack cocaine, freebase nicotine vaporises and passes rapidly through the lungs into the bloodstream. Because it reaches the brain so quickly it is thought to be more addictive than normal nicotine.

The research, by a team at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, could lead to ways of rating the addictiveness of different brands.

Scientists compared 11 brands available in America. They found that some contained 10 to 20 times higher percentages of freebase nicotine than experts had previously believed.

Brands were compared with a laboratory "reference" cigarette containing one per cent freebase nicotine. They varied greatly, ranging from one per cent or two per cent to 36 per cent for a speciality US brand called American Spirit. Marlboro contained up to 9.6 per cent freebase nicotine. Other well known brands included Camel (2.7 per cent), Winston (five per cent to 6.2 per cent) and Gauloises Blondes (5.7 per cent to 7.5 per cent).

Professor James Pankow, who led the study, reported in the journal Chemical Research in Toxicology, said: "During smoking, only the freebase form can volatise from a particle into the air in the respiratory tract. Since scientists have shown that a drug becomes more addictive when it is delivered to the brain more rapidly, freebase nicotine levels in cigarette smoke thus are at the heart of the controversy regarding the tobacco industry's use of additives like ammonia and urea, as well as blending choices in cigarette design."

A 1997 study led by Prof Pankow linked ammonia additives with increased freebase nicotine levels in cigarettes. He found that on its own, nicotine would not be very potent in the body but ammonia strips away protons from surrounding molecules including nicotine, making it more rapidly absorbed.

The 1997 research confirmed assertions made by the American Food and Drug Administration that widespread use of ammonia compounds in cigarettes manufacturing was evidence that the industry manipulated the delivery of nicotine in tobacco products.

Professor Jack Henningfield, from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, said: "It appears likely that ingredients used in modern cigarette manufacture, such as ammonia and urea, account for this addiction-enhancing effect."

Professor Pankow said that in the United States there were no formal tobacco industry or Food and Drug Administration guidelines on appropriate levels of freebase nicotine in cigarettes. But the message from the industry was that cigarettes contained only small percentages of freebase nicotine. Only additives on a permitted list from the Department of Health are allowed in cigarettes made in Britain.

A spokesman for the Tobacco Manufacturers' Association in the UK said: "Cigarettes manufactured here do abide by the permitted list and may be quite different from those in America."

A spokesman for Phillip Morris, the maker of Marlboro, said: "Ammonia is a compound naturally present in tobacco leaf. Quite simply, there is no safe cigarette. No one cigarette is any more or less harmful or addictive than another. All cigarettes and their smoke are harmful and addictive.

"It is entirely inappropriate to start communicating to consumers that there are distinctions in terms of harm or addictiveness between various brands of cigarettes. If consumers are concerned about the harm or addictiveness of smoking they should quit."

Three men who featured as the most famous character in tobacco advertising - the horse-riding Marlboro Man - have died from smoking-related illnesses: David Millar Jnr in 1987 from emphysema, Wayne McLaren in 1992 after lung cancer spread to his brain, and David McLean in 1995 from lung cancer.
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ARTICLE

Thanks to Bee Stonium
 
why not just cut to the chase? who is going to try to manufacture some high purity freebase nicotine? i can imagine it now, the pipe will make a comeback! ;)
 
Taken from Science Week, 13 November 1998

1. ON THE TOBACCO INDUSTRY AND NICOTINE AS AN ADDICTIVE DRUG

In 1994 the state of Minnesota filed suit against the tobacco industry, and although this trial is now history, there are many people who feel the legacy of the trial will carry on into the 21st century because of the revelations contained in the millions of pages of previously secret internal tobacco industry documents made public in the trial.

R.D. Hurt and C.R. Robertson now present an extensive review of the material in a medical journal from the perspective of medical science, and the authors make the following points:

1) The litigation tobacco industry documents reveal that for decades the tobacco industry knew and internally acknowledged that *nicotine is an addictive drug and that cigarettes are the ultimate nicotine delivery device. The following statements by executives, for example, are found in tobacco industry documents:
"Very few consumers are aware of the effects of nicotine, i.e., its addictive nature and that nicotine is a poison."
(H.D. Steele, Brown and Williamson Tobacco Company, 1978).
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And in another Brown and Williamson memo:
"Nicotine is the addicting agent in cigarettes."
(A.J. Mellman, Brown and Williamson Tobacco Company, 1983).
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Concerning cigarettes as a drug delivery device, the litigation documents reveal that C.E. Teague Jr., assistant director of research at R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, wrote in 1972 in an internal memorandum:
"In a sense, the tobacco industry may be thought of as being a specialized, highly ritualized and stylized segment of the pharmaceutical industry. Tobacco products, uniquely, contain and deliver nicotine, a potent drug with a variety of physiological effects... Thus a tobacco product is, in essence, a vehicle for delivery of nicotine."
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2) The authors report that perhaps their most surprising finding in the document review was the evidence of tobacco industry efforts spanning 3 decades to alter the chemical form of nicotine to increase the percentage of freebase nicotine delivered to smokers.

Depending on pH, nicotine exists as a diprotonated salt, a monoprotonated salt, or an uncharged neutral species. The salt forms are called the "bound" forms, and the neutral species is called the "freebase" form. Nicotine favors the salt form at low values of pH (e.g., pH = 3) and the freebase form at high values of pH (e.g., pH = 8). Freebase nicotine apparently crosses biological membranes more easily than the charged counterparts, and this affects the physiological response to the drug. The tobacco industry was apparently well aware of these properties of nicotine as far back as 1966, and for 3 decades the tobacco industry had a focus on developing high pH delivery of nicotine to increase its physiological effects.

The authors conclude:
"When the breadth and depth of tobacco industry actions are understood, it becomes evident that allowing a tobacco settlement that honors the industry demands for legal and financial immunity would be a public health disaster of epic proportions and would allow the industry to continue to promote its deadly product throughout the 21st century. Congress must use its power to stop the carnage of more than 400,000 Americans dying each year of cigarette-related diseases."
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-----------
R.D. Hurt and C.R. Robertson (2 installations, US)
“Prying open the door to the tobacco industry's secrets about
nicotine.”
J. Amer. Med. Assoc. 7 Oct 1998 280:1173
QY: Richard D. Hurt, Mayo Clinic, 200 First St. SW, Rochester, MN
55905 US.
-----------

Text Notes:

*nicotine: The alkaloid nicotine [3-(1-methyl-pyrrolidyl)pyridine] is a tertiary amine composed of pyridine and pyrrolidine rings. The current consensus among neuropharmacologists is that nicotine is the psychoactive drug primarily responsible for the addictive nature of tobacco use. Nicotine is highly selective for so-called "nicotinic receptors" for *acetylcholine in the peripheral and central nervous systems, and activation of these receptors is the likely source of the psychoactive effects of the drug. The nicotinic-acetylcholine receptor is a molecularly well-characterized receptor, and its activation evidently leads to conformation changes in its 5 subunits that result in a transient increase of permeability of the neuron membrane to the sodium ion. The nicotinic- acetylcholine receptor is therefore characterized as a neurotransmitter-gated ion channel. Concentrations of nicotine in blood rise quickly during cigarette smoking and peak at its completion. Nicotine is also deposited in the lungs, spleen, liver, and brain, where concentrations are typically twice those of measurable blood concentrations. Nicotine readily crosses the *blood-brain barrier, leading to the release of acetylcholine, *norepinephrine, *dopamine, *serotonin, *vasopressin, *growth hormone, *cortisol, *prolactin, *neurophysin 1, and *adrenocorticotropic hormone, and release of these substances causes various neuropharmacological effects. Apart from the neuropharmacological effects of nicotine, nicotine and other constituents in cigarette smoke elevate blood pressure, cause *tachycardia, *arrhythmia, and *vasoconstriction in *cutaneous tissue and skin; lower body temperature; inhibit *diuresis; increase *gastrointestinal tonus; antagonize ulcer healing; and decrease pain threshold.

*acetylcholine: A prevalent *neurotransmitter substance, both in the brain and in the peripheral nervous system, where it controls the actions of skeletal and smooth muscle.

*neurotransmitter substance: Neurotransmitters are chemical substances released at the terminals of nerve axons in response to the propagation of an impulse to the end of that axon. The neurotransmitter substance diffuses into the synapse, the junction between the presynaptic nerve ending and the postsynaptic neuron, and at the membrane of the postsynaptic neuron the transmitter substance interacts with a receptor. Depending on the type of receptor, the result may be an excitatory or an inhibitory effect on the postsynaptic nerve cell.

*blood-brain barrier: A selective mechanism opposing the passage of most ions and large molecular-weight compounds from the blood to brain tissue, the mechanism operating in a continuous layer of endothelial cells connected by tight junctions between cells. (Endothelial cells are flat cells forming a layer lining blood vessels, lymphatic vessels, the heart, etc.)

*norepinephrine: The principal neurotransmitter substance released from nerve endings of the sympathetic nervous system. (The sympathetic nervous system is a part of the autonomic nervous system involved in the mobilization of energy resources during stress and arousal.

*dopamine: A neurotransmitter substance.

*serotonin: A neurotransmitter substance involved in nearly everything occurring in the brain, including psychological states such as anxiety and depression, and dysfunctions producing migraine and epilepsy.

*vasopressin: A peptide hormone important in the regulation of *diuresis.

*growth hormone: A vertebrate polypeptide hormone that regulates growth. In general, hormones are signaling molecules secreted into the blood stream by endocrine cells and acting on target cells that possess receptors for the hormone.

*cortisol: A corticosteroid hormone secreted by the adrenal gland.

*prolactin: A polypeptide hormone synthesized and released by the pituitary gland.

*neurophysin 1: Neurophysins are a family of proteins synthesized in the hypothalamus, and function as carriers in the transport and storage of a number of hypothalamic-pituitary hormones.

*adrenocorticotropic hormone: (ACTH) A pituitary hormone.

*tachycardia: Rapid beating of the heart, conventionally applied to rates over 100 per minute.

*arrhythmia: Irregularity of the heartbeat.

*vasoconstriction: Narrowing of the blood vessels.

*cutaneous tissue: In general, tissue associated with skin.

*diuresis: Excretion of large volumes of urine.

*gastrointestinal tonus: In general, contraction of gastrointestinal muscle.
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Summary & Notes by SCIENCE-WEEK 13Nov98

Full Issue Text: http://scienceweek.com/1998/sw981113.htm
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Thought this information might fit well here.

BigTrancer :)
 
i like how mild cigarette's have 'air holes' on the butt to dilute the smoke. but these 'air holes' are positioned where you hold the fuckers, thus partially negating their diluting effect.

i'm sure the ciggi manufacturers didn't do this intentionally.......:)

but they get away with it.
 
So, the air holes draw air in while sucking on it, making the cigarette burn less tobacco per drag? Wouldn't this make the cigarette last longer therefore you would get the same amount of nicotine as a stronger one?

How do the air holes work?
 
They found that some brands contained 10 to 20 times higher percentages of freebase nicotine than experts had previously been led to believe.


I suppose Jeffrey Wigand didn't deal to every lie about addictive potential that the big tabacco giants tell :\
 
kent used to also contain a fibre in the filter which was double jeppordy... micro something.
 
I don't know if it would really be that surprising? You would think cigarrette companies would make them as addictive as possible, hence meaning people would buy more and they would increase their profits. Just a thought.
 
eklab - try menthols when ur on pills i dont smoke anymore but when i have the odd pill now i luv menthols. either alpines or winfield greens.
 
Menthols!.......Y....U....C....K! I practically vom at the sight of them!
 
I would think (know) that armed with the knowledge that the holes are there it is very easy not to cover them.
The choice is yours. I get tired of people constantly coming up with conspiracy theories about the tobacco industry
 
From http://cis.nci.nih.gov/fact/3_74.htm

Tobacco companies designed light cigarettes with tiny pinholes on the filters. These "filter vents" dilute cigarette smoke with air when light cigarettes are "puffed" on by smoking machines, causing the machines to measure artificially low tar and nicotine levels.

Many smokers do not know that their cigarette filters have vent holes. The filter vents are uncovered when cigarettes are smoked on smoking machines. However, without realizing it and because they cannot avoid it, many smokers block the tiny vent holes with their fingers or lips—which basically turns the light cigarette into a regular cigarette.

Because people, unlike machines, crave nicotine, they may inhale more deeply; take larger, more rapid, or more frequent puffs; or smoke a few extra cigarettes each day to get enough nicotine to satisfy their craving. This is called "compensating," and it means that smokers end up inhaling more tar, nicotine, and other harmful chemicals than the machine-based numbers suggest.

Cigarette makers can also make the paper wrapped around the tobacco of light cigarettes burn faster so that the smoking machines get in fewer puffs before the cigarettes burn down. The result is that the machine measures less tar and nicotine in the smoke of the cigarette.

Those American Spirit ciggies are the most disgusting ciggies on the market, I made the mistake of buying a packet after reading about them being additive free online. They gave me a headache after every drag and tasted like shit. I tried to give them to some crackhead in rehab and even though he had no ciggies he would'nt smoke them either hahaha
 
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