Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 1, 1995 TAG: 9508010077
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Philip Morris executives had told Congress under oath last year they never manipulate nicotine levels in cigarettes and nicotine naturally drops as they remove tar from tobacco to make ``light'' cigarettes.
But Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., showed private Philip Morris documents on the House floor that he said contradicted that. He said they quoted company researchers as admitting to ``systematically manipulating nicotine'' to make light, or low-tar, cigarettes appealing to hard-core smokers.
``Philip Morris deliberately increased nicotine levels in commercially marketed cigarettes,'' said Waxman, who obtained the documents in his investigation of the tobacco industry.
He noted that Philip Morris researchers, in documents he unveiled in Congress last week, called nicotine addictive and gave college students electric shocks to see if they would smoke more.
Waxman is trying to pressure the Food and Drug Administration to regulate nicotine as an addictive drug and then to use that authority to fight teen-age tobacco use by banning cigarette vending machines and curtailing advertising. President Clinton is weighing that plan against a compromise, in which tobacco companies would provide the government $100 million to enforce largely ignored laws banning tobacco sales to minors in return for no FDA regulation.
Waxman's contentions focused on a technical but legally critical question: Did Philip Morris boost the proportion of nicotine in ``light'' cigarettes and then sell them? The answer could affect Justice Department investigations of whether tobacco executives lied to Congress when they denied manipulating nicotine, and Philip Morris' $10 billion libel suit against ABC for alleging such manipulation.
Philip Morris did not comment.
by CNB