Low Tar Cigarettes
Low tar cigarettes are the big tobacco companies' great deception. Smoked by millions of people around the world and promoted as a healthier alternative, these cigarettes are in fact no healthier than the normal kind.
The vast majority of US smokers now smoke low tar cigarettes, but it wasn't always this way. Filter tips were first added in the 1950s as a response to mounting scientific evidence that tobacco was causing lung cancer. The continued rise of lung cancer cases demonstrates what little effect this had.
To understand why low tar, filtered cigarettes are now so ubiquitous, and why that's not a good thing, there are three questions that we need to ask.
Are They Really Low Tar?
Sounds like a dumb question, as the cigarette companies list the tar content on each pack right? Actually, what's listed is the amount of tar that makes it through the filter and into a special cigarette smoking machine, which fails to accurately replicate the way that real people smoke.
A low tar cigarette has exactly the same tobacco as a normal cigarette - there is no 'low tar tobacco'. The difference is in the filter, which contains special ventilation holes designed to let in more air to dilute the smoke and reduce the tar content. The problem is, the way most people smoke their low tar cigarettes tends to compensate for this in two ways.
Firstly, people simply smoke more. To get the same nicotine hit from their filter cigarette, they inhale more deeply and smoke more cigarettes. Even though the smoke is being mixed with air, a greater volume is going into the lungs and so nothing has been achieved. Key to this is the addictive power of nicotine and the way it compels users to smoke.
Secondly, the way that people smoke changes. Consciously or otherwise, they tend to use their lips , saliva or fingers to block the ventilation holes. One study showed that covering these holes increased the tar content of smoke by up to 12 times, or to exactly the same level as normal cigarettes.
Both these reasons highlight the way that smoking machines can misrepresent tar content, because they simply do not reproduce a real smoker's behavior. As such, tar content labels on cigarette packets should not be believed.
Have
They Reduced Lung Cancer Rates?
Since the introduction of these new "healthier" cigarettes, you might think that rates of lung cancer and other smoking-related diseases would have dropped. Sadly this has not been the case. Even as machine-measured levels of tar have fallen, the risks associated with smoking have continued to increase.
Overall lung cancer rates rose right up until the early 1990s, long after filters were introduced. Falling levels since then can be attributed to lower numbers of people smoking rather than to any innovation of the tobacco companies.
What
Do The Tobacco Companies Get Out Of It?
As always in the cigarette industry, its important to consider exactly what the huge tobacco companies are looking to achieve. In this case, low tar, "light" and "ultra-light" cigarettes are a calculated effort to maintain nicotine addiction levels while creating the perception of improved health.
In the early 50s, the tide of scientific opinion was turning against Big Tobacco. By introducing a filter, public fears were assuaged and smoking continued. It took more than 40 years for scientists to show beyond doubt that adding a filter to cigarettes did not make a difference.
Additionally, removing the incorrectly measured tar level from the packet still hasn't happened, leading a generation of smokers to believe they are cutting down their nicotine habit when they are doing no such thing.
By dodging the good science, paying for pro-nicotine bad science and misrepresenting tar content, the large tobacco firms have drawn what should have been a very one-sided debate, over whether smoking is bad for you, into a protracted 50 year battle. With profits still soaring, they have so far been the clear winners.