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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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BAT Accused of Adding Chocolate to Cigarettes to Encourage Children to Smoke [06/04-4]
Excerpts from: Chocolate in tobacco 'to attract children'
By Celia Hall The Telegraph [06/04/04]
Tobacco companies were accused yesterday of adding food flavours to cigarettes in order to encourage children to start smoking.
British American Tobacco said that the flavourings were added to reduce the harshness of tobacco but denied that they were a way of persuading children to smoke.
A list of tobacco additives including food flavours, such as chocolate, sherry, cherry and vanilla, were referred to in a recent research article on the effects that they had on the chemistry of smoke in an experiment with rats.
The company's website shows that brown sugar, liquorice and cocoa extract are added to Lucky Strike sold in Britain. Rothmans Royal 120 has brown sugar in the ingredients.
The company is also allowed to use apple juice, cinnamon bark oil, coffee extract, coriander seed oil, honey, prune extract, red rose oil and vanilla extract.
Amanda Sandford, the research manager for Ash (Action on Smoking and Health) said: "In the UK 100,000 smokers or people who have smoked die every year and 400,000 give up. They are losing a huge number of customers and the only way to restore their customers is to make sure more children smoke. Making cigarettes less harsh will make them more palatable to children."
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