John R. Polito 02/23/21

Confessions from once-secret nicotine industry documents

To date, as required by lawsuit settlement agreements, cigarette makers have been forced to make 15,012,413 internal corporate documents public.

As the following document quotations suggest, the industry knowingly hooked millions on a highly addictive poison, almost 90 percent while children or teens.

1963 Brown and Williamson: "Nicotine is addictive. We are, then, in the business of selling nicotine, an addictive drug ..."

1972 R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company (RJR): "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."

"Critics of tobacco products increasingly allege that smoking is dangerous to the health of the smoker. Part of this alleged danger is claimed to arise from ingestion of nicotine ..." "If ... nicotine is the sine qua non of smoking, and if we ... move toward reduction or elimination of nicotine from our products, then we shall eventually liquidate our business. If we intend to remain in business and our business is the manufacture and sale of dosage forms of nicotine, then at some point we must make a stand."

1975 Philip Morris: "As you know, the major commercial use for nicotine is as an insecticide. Black Leaf 40 is a 40% solution of nicotine sulfate."

1977 Lorillard: "Recovery of nicotine from Black Leaf 40 solution." "Conclusion: This procedure when used on 40% nicotine sulfate solutions is a viable method for the recovery of extremely pure nicotine alkaloids."

1980 The Tobacco Institute: "Confidential Minnesota Tobacco Litigation." "I'm told, that the entire matter of addiction is the most potent weapon a prosecuting attorney can have in a lung cancer/cigarette case. We can't defend continued smoking as 'free choice' if the person was 'addicted.' "

1980 R.J. Reynolds: "Toxicity of chemicals is usually estimated by determination of the toxic doses to animals and is usually expressed as an LD50 (the calculated dose expected to kill 50% of the animals in a population). The oral LD50 for nicotine in rats has been determined to be 50-60 mg./kg. of body weight. This would be equivalent to a 70 kg. man ingesting from 3500-4000 mg. of nicotine. Based on a review of non-fatal and fatal accidents in man resulting from ingestion of nicotine (usually from insecticides), toxicology reference books state that the minimum fatal dose for nicotine is 30 mg. or greater. The Federal Trade Commission analysis of our CAMEL cigarettes indicates that when smoked under standard conditions, the smoke contains 1.83 mg. of nicotine per cigarette."

1983 British American Tobacco (BAT) "Nicotine as an insecticide." George Davidson ... suggested that BAT should make use of nicotine as an insecticide. The Leaf view is that the use of nicotine for this purpose is really precluded on the grounds of cost and in the light of the effective products already on the market." BAT's reply to Davidson

1987 R.J. Reynolds: "NICOTINE: ... is a deadly poison in concentrated form." "40 mg. (1 drop) of pure concentrated nicotine alkaloid is a fatal dose." "Death has been reported to occur in as short a period of time as 5 min. to 4 hrs."

1989 R.J. Reynolds: "The use of nicotine and nicotine salts as insecticides has been known in the industry for many years."

1990 Philip Morris: "Formulations of Nicotine-Based Insecticides/Pesticides." "HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION produced by Philip Morris ... subject to a court order in Philip Morris vs. ABC. This document and its contents shall not be used, shown or distributed except as provided in the court's order."

1992 R.J. Reynolds: IDEAS FOR NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES ... Extraction ... "We can currently produce 50,000 to 75,000 pounds per year of nicotine in an 8% aqueous solution. If the price of nicotine made it financially feasible, we could install evaporation equipment to produce 90%+ nicotine. Currently, this waste stream is destroyed by incineration. The end products could be ... nicotine salt insecticides (ex., Black Leaf 40) ..."

NOTE: According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the sale of Black Leaf 40 was discontinued in 1992.

1994 R.J. Reynolds: A review of the literature pertaining to the toxicology of nicotine. "Nicotine is toxic by acute administration by several routes in mice, rats, rabbits, cats and dogs. Deaths have occurred following accidental exposure to high concentrations in humans. The major acute effects of nicotine in humans and animals are transient stimulation and subsequent depression of the peripheral and central nervous systems, peripheral autonomic ganglia and skeletal muscle, and stimulation of smooth muscle. These neural and neuromuscular actions produce a variety of clinical symptoms including nausea, salivation, abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea, cold sweat, tremors, convulsions, headaches, dizziness, disturbed hearing and vision, mental confusion, weakness, decreased blood pressure, difficult breathing and collapse, with death resulting from respiratory failure."

2006 document produced by Philip Morris in 2010: "2. Summary ... Nicotine is one of the most toxic of all poisons and has a rapid onset of action. Apart from local caustic actions, the target organs are the peripheral and central nervous systems. Nicotine is also a powerfully addictive drug."

2021 Philip Morris: "Smoking is highly addictive. Nicotine is the addictive drug in tobacco. Cigarette companies intentionally designed cigarettes with enough nicotine to create and sustain addiction. It’s not easy to quit. When you smoke, the nicotine actually changes the brain – that’s why quitting is so hard.​"

Developed in the 1990s and used in 120 countries on 140 crops, a family of synthetic nicotine-like insecticides known as neonicotinoids or neonics have become the most widely used insecticides in the world.

There is growing alarm of an "insect apocalypse," with neonicotinoids also being blamed for killing bees, butterflies, hummingbirds and other pollinators.

The European Union banned the top three neonics in 2018. In 2020, the EPA imposed minimal restrictions on continued use of the 5 best-selling neonics.

Yesterday, America reflected on an unthinkable milestone, 500,000 COVID-19 deaths. Yesterday, nearly a half-a-million annual tobacco-related deaths (1 in 4 during middle-age) were almost totally ignored.

If nicotine addiction robs teens of free-choice, how are their deaths any less worthy of declaring war and spending trillions to prevent?

Yesterday, pharmacies at Walmart, CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid and Publix administered COVID-19 vaccine injections. Yesterday, all but one of those stores sold cigarettes to customers receiving injections.

Imagine the outrage if they were both selling COVID-19 and profiting by inoculating against it.

Reflect on the irony of making crippled customers walk to the back of the store to purchase medicines and nebulizers for smoking-related diseases caused by cigarettes purchased at checkout counters near the store's entrance.

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