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Action on Smoking and Health
A National Legal-Action Antismoking Organization Entirely Supported by Tax-Deductible Contributions
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Crack-Like Form of Nicotine Makes Some Cigarettes More Addictive Than Others
[08/13-1]
Excerpts from: Crack-like form of nicotine makes cigarettes more addictive
Sunday
Times.CO.ZA [08/03/03]
Some brands of cigarettes are far more addictive than others, according to new
research into the additives in tobacco products.
For the first time, scientists in the US have been able to measure the amount of super-addictive "freebase" nicotine that cigarettes deliver to smokers.
Freebase nicotine, like crack cocaine, is vaporised and passes rapidly through the lungs into the bloodstream.
Scientists compared 11 brands in the US - some of which are available in South Africa.
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 1% freebase nicotine.
He found that on its own, nicotine would not be very potent in the body, but ammonia strips away protons from molecules including nicotine, making it more rapidly absorbed.
But the message from the industry was that cigarettes contained only small percentages of freebase nicotine.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.
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