People who smoke cigarettes labeled low in tar and nicotine inhale deeper and harder, taking in more of the substances than they think, The New York Times reported Monday.
Machines that measure levels of nicotine and tar in cigarettes do not accurately reflect how much a smoker inhales, the newspaper said.Federal officials and health experts say smokers of so-called "light" cigarettes often puff harder or draw deeper to compensate for the mildness.
"We know that consumers do not smoke in exactly the same manner as the machine," said Judith D. Wilkenfeld, assistant director in the Federal Trade Commis-sion's Division of Advertising Practices.
Cigarettes that are labeled low in tar and nicotine now account for 60 percent of cigarettes sold in this country.
Tests are performed by tobacco company laboratories under the supervision of the FTC. Machines hold the cigarette and draw air through it in two-second puffs, repeating the puffs once every minute until the cigarette burns to the filter.
But scientific studies over recent years have shown that smokers get the same amount of nicotine no matter what cigarette they smoke, the Times reported. The same is true of tar.
"A smoker can draw 3 milligrams of nicotine out of a cigarette that is rated as a 1 milligram yield by the FTC test," Dr. Jack E. Henningfield, chief of clinical pharmacology research at the National Institutes on Drug Abuse, told the newspaper.
More accurate information on how much tar and nicotine are in a cigarette would help cut smoking in the United States, said Neal Benowitz, a professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco.
The federal government blames 400,000 deaths a year on smoking, but cigarettemakers deny there is proof cigarettes cause lung cancer, heart disease or other ailments for which smoking has been blamed.
At hearings last month before the House Energy and Commerce health subcommittee, the heads of the nation's seven largest tobacco companies denied accusations that they manipulate the amount of nicotine in cigarettes and also denied that nicotine is addictive.