Plea to curb '1000 or so' cigarette additives

By Nick Perry

health reporter

The Heart Foundation has called for an urgent review of cigarette additives, following an international report which says licorice, sugar and cocoa are being used to increase smoking levels.

The report, produced by anti-smoking groups and using some of the tobacco industry's own research, says sweeteners are used to disguise the harsh taste of nicotine and to attract younger smokers.

It says licorice and cocoa also act as "bronchodilators," opening up the airways to allow more smoke into the lungs. Ammonia additives chemically boost the body's absorption of nicotine.

Other substances, including menthol, numb the throat, making users less aware of the smoke's aggravating effects.

The report says sugary substances encourage smokers to inhale more often and more deeply by making cigarettes more palatable for the smoker and less offensive to non-smokers.

It says tobacco companies have successfully argued that additives encourage smokers to shift to low-tar cigarettes. They have free rein, with hundreds of additives administered to cigarette varieties.

The foundation director, Dr Boyd Swinburn, said yesterday that the Government needed to fast-track rules limiting additives. "It is not right the industry can pour additives into cigarettes virtually without regulation."

Lobbyist Murray Laugesen said one drag of a strong, filterless cigarette as a child was enough to put him off for life. But now, with up to 10 per cent of each cigarette comprising additives to smooth the taste, smoking was more attractive to youngsters.

A Ministry of Health spokesman, Matthew Allen, said a review due out in the next few months would list the additives it was most worried about, and which could lead to rule changes. There was little information about the effects of the 1000 or so additives allowed. Like other products, they were often used to provide distinction between brands.

A spokesman for British American Tobacco, Tony Maguire, said lobbyists were trying to push new shock-horror stories each day.

The company, like other successful brands, kept its recipes secret - but the ministry knew of, and approved, everything added to each cigarette. The company would never try to encourage anyone under 18 to smoke.

"Like all New Zealanders, I am amused by the staggering allegations surrounding tobacco. We make a choice [to smoke] and we do it because we enjoy it."