Translation of the interview Quand les multinationales font de la politique
with Pr Robert Molimard, professor emeritus of physiology and coordinator of the DIU of Tabacologie to the Faculty of Medicine Paris-South.
Founder of the first French learned society on the tobacco and the nicotinism, inventor of the word tabacology.
Author of “Smokes” and the “Small handbook of Défume” (Sides Editions).
Translated by Iro Cyr
Chapter 1
Pr Molimard: If you’re doing a bibliography on tobacco aromas, you won’t be able to find anything of course, because nobody does any research on tobacco. There may be some things that are known to tobacco companies. But naturally, if you are Philip Morris, and if in your lab you discover a substance that is bound to make your brand of cigarettes more attractive, you are not going to publish this in the international literature so that BAT copies it. We are dealing with industrial secrets after all.
It is complex, in my opinion. We can discuss the role of nicotine in addiction. It produces effects that smokers appreciate. But what interests me, are not the effects that nicotine may have. It has enormous effects, some that are favorable. It keeps you awake, in fact, the reason that people who work on night shifts smoke a lot, is because it helps them stay awake. It has a paradoxical relaxing effect, and it has other effects, particularly that it increases sugar levels in the blood. It has a hyperglycaemic effect.
Dr G… Some people talk about 4000 toxic substances in cigarettes, this is something we hear, and they also say, that in the past, the tobacco that we smoked, the cigarettes we smoked, were less harmful, and today they are more harmful.
Pr Molimard: Well! There are a lot of legends when it comes to that. Firstly, the more refined analytical chemistry becomes, the more the substances we will discover. In addition, 4000 substances, does not mean at all that there are 4000 toxic substances. The majority of the substances found in smoke - for instance water, is a substance - the biggest majority are not toxic. But there are some that are frighteningly toxic. And, we are beginning to recognize the toxic substances,. No. 1 – carbon monoxide. If we would suppress carbon monoxide ….I must say that those who chew tobacco already have a 90% - 95% decrease in risk, because carbon monoxide has been suppressed. In my opinion, it is the most dangerous product, because you are dealing with a chronic intoxication to carbon monoxide if you smoke. There are some terrible carcinogens, namely nitrosamines. They are terrible carcinogens, in infinitesimal amounts. And this is why when we indicate the amount of tar on your pack of cigarettes, nitrosamines can represent the 10 thousandth part of the weight of tar.
Dr G….Which means that it’s nothing…
Pr Molimard: It means, that.. let’s take as an example a study on cigarettes – a Polish study – that they compared cigarettes in relation to the amount of tars as they were indicated on the packages, and they looked at the amount of nitrosamines. It was the Marlboros that contained the least amount of tars, that had the biggest amounts of nitrosamines! So, the amount of the total tars, as it is indicated… 95% of the weight of tars are inert substances without any interest, that don’t present any particular danger. And if there is two ten thousandths instead of one ten thousandth of nitrosamines, then we end up with something a lot more dangerous. In other words, indicating the weight of tars, makes no sense. You can have cigarettes very strong on tars, that are far less carcinogenic than cigarettes that produce less. In addition, it makes even less sense when we consider that a smoker is not a smoking machine! And what is noted on the pack of cigarettes, is the quantity that a smoking machine will extract in standard conditions with standard temperatures and air drafts, where 35 ml puffs will be extracted in 2 seconds by a syringe every minute. If instead of taking a 35 ml puff, you take one of 80 ml - like it presently occurs with ultra-light cigarettes - you are already multiplying by 2 the nicotine and tar quantity that you will exhale, if you are taking a puff every 30 seconds, or every 20 seconds instead of every minute, you are multiplying again by 3 you end up multiplying by 6. Instead of leaving butt sizes of 23mm, or 8 mm before you reach the filter, or if you leave no butt at all -thus smoking a bit of the filter - well, you are going to pick up tar already deposited in the butt…As such, a smoker, will pull in ‘’what he wants’’, what he needs..
Let’s see, other dangerous substances: there are hydrocarbons, benzopyrene, naphthalene, and benzene products. When you see big advertizing billboards with ‘’Oh the dangerous products in a cigarette: acetone’’. But someone who rubs a stain off his pants, he pumps in 10 times more acetone that he would from a cigarette, in his whole lifetime. And everyone knows that acetone is a normal product of our body metabolism and that it is not dangerous.
Dr G … But we can nevertheless say that when one’s a smoker, one has risks of cancer…
Pr Molimard: Oh yes, yes yes ! It essentially increases lung cancers. A more than 20 cigarettes smoker, will have nearly 20 times the risk of a non-smoker. And then it doesn’t stop immediately. 10 years after cessation, the risk is still doubled if you have been a heavy smoker for a long time. But that is related to smoked tobacco. In addition, you have the cardiovascular risk. But cardiovascular disease, is strange: It requires carbon monoxide. If there is no carbon monoxide… I have conducted a whole bibliographical study some years ago: There is no risk increase with sucked, chewed, or snuffed tobacco. It must necessarily be burnt. And secondly, there is an enormous peculiarity in that the risk does not increase with the quantity. Meaning that, whether you smoke a little or a lot…. If you smoke a few cigarettes, similar to what they claim about passive smoking, you will be multiplying by 1,5 the risk of someone who does not smoke and who is not exposed. If you smoke more than a pack, you will multiply by 1,8…or 2 ! There is no direct dose relationship. Which brings us to the hypothesis, that was brought forward by Mrs. Louis-Sylvestre, nutritionist at le Collège de France, who is not just ‘’anybody’’: ‘’ You are Japanese, you smoke, you will not get a myocardial infarction. The same Japanese will move to the west coast of the United States and will get an infarction, what do they eat? Macdonald’s!
Dr G: Poison and less fish
Pr Molimard: While they were eating fish in Japan. If it’s the eating habits, it would then explain why there is no connection to the number of cigarettes smoked.
Dr G It is true that Japan is particularly strong on fish, there is nevertheless a big difference
Pr Molimard: Yes, and they ingest mercury with it…
Now, the risk pertaining to the 4000 substances… let’s say that there are probably 3990 that are inert, they’re of not much interest.
Dr G … and about ten that are dangerous…the other cancers, other than…
Pr Molimard: Finally, you develop cancers on body parts that the carcinogens reach. The mouth, the larynx, the bronchi…So, with very high nicotine cigarettes, ‘’Boyards’’, we didn’t inhale, or inhaled very little, therefore we contracted cancers of the large bronchi. With the ultralights, we inhale a lot deeper and we contract cancers deeper and deeper in the lungs. And then, there is of course the esophagus, because you swallow. The bladder. Why the bladder? Because there is a concentration of urine, and thus the attack is more aggressive. So… perhaps a little of all cancers, because there is some disturbances of the immune system, but really, the bulk of it is that. The main are, the respiratory tract, the lung and the bladder.
And we also rely on surveys - ‘’prevalence’’ surveys – meaning percentages of people who smoke. But say a few years ago, you questioned a lad who smoked, by asking him: ‘’So, do you smoke?’’ He was at 5 cigarettes a week at that point, but on one particular day he smoked a whole pack. Because it would make him look cool, he would cloud the issue by replying ‘’I smoke a pack!’’, only because he had done it once. Today you ask him the same question again: he doesn’t look yet upon himself as a smoker, therefore he will reply ‘’I don’t smoke’’.
The big problem is, that you have extraordinary discordances depending on the surveys. There is that European study from 2002 -- the Eurobarometer -- ordered by the European Commission. The study was done in France, namely by the CSA. Well, between 1995 and 2004, the percentage of smokers in France went from 37,5 to 44% - an increase - and in 2002, a study by the INPES found 30,4% ! And no one ever wondered what these differences were representing. Why 30,4% - well they then exclaimed that ‘’it is fantastic, there is a decrease in the consumption, in the tobacco prevalence in France’’. But nobody said a thing about the 44%! If you’re a scientist, and you see a difference, the first question should be ‘’Why the difference? Is it the method by which we collect this information?’’. Well, while one was done through a telephone survey, the other, the one by Eurobarometer, used the door-to-door method. A telephone survey and a door-to-door survey, are not the same at all. We don’t collect the same information. For example, over the telephone, the youth mostly have portable telephones (therefore we couldn’t find the numbers in the phone books) and they smoke a lot, and those unfortunate ones who live in the street, don’t generally have a phone…therefore you’re not dealing with the same types of populations.
Chapter 2
Dr G: Based on this logic, we can pass to 50% or 48…
Pr Molimard: We don’t know, but in any event, all we know is that smoking is a central part of people’s identities. And if you attack their identity, the results are that they shy away, they fold-in on themselves, defensive reactions towards one’s identity. And it might go away…, they might tell you: ‘’Oh yes, I will seize this opportunity to stop smoking!’’. The other day, my secretary had a patient that had registered for a consultation but phoned in to cancel. The reason of the cancellation in his words: ‘’You see, at work I can no longer smoke, therefore I smoke one outside during my break… so if at work I no longer smoke, that’s already a given, why should I deprive myself from smoking a little when I get home ?’’. And she replied: ‘’Did you cut down a bit?’’, ‘’Oh no’’, he said ‘’ I used to smoke a pack, now I am at a pack and a half!’’. Therefore, we will see phenomena like this, a kind of fortress that will be established. So, we have to try to convince people, and in this sense the Evin legislation was beginning to work. We no longer smoked at meetings, it’s strange you know. Now we threaten people with passive smoking.
Dr G : So, passive smoking. You have a study that speaks of 6 deaths , non-smokers, at places of social gatherings, in France, it was done in Europe. We are wondering about these 6 deaths. What is this story on passive smoking?
Pr Molimard: Well…passive smoking? There is this ‘’resistible escalation’’ of the number of deaths due to passive smoking. Some years ago, I was called all kinds of names, because at a TV studio, I had cited the numbers that were given to me verbally by Catherine Hill who looks after cancer epidemiology at the Cancer Institute. She had said ‘’Well, it’s very difficult. Because when you talk about total mortality, which is between 60 000 and 65 000, it doesn’t matter if you make a 10% error since it is still a big public health problem posed by tobacco. But when you’re dealing with numbers such 100, 200, 300, the uncertainty becomes enormous’’. I then asked her ‘’What do you think?’’. She replied: ‘’Let’s say, for cancers, maybe a hundred. Everything combined, chronic bronchitis, myocardial infarctions, whatever, ok let’s say 1000. But it’s a very scooped estimate. The Americans have come up with 2500 deaths, not in the States, but by transposing it to France, without a French study. It was 2500 deaths. We relayed this to the Académie de Médecine, Gérard Dubois, Professor Tubiana. Later, a European study appeared – called ‘’Lifting the Smoke Screen’’ – that announced that : Deaths by passive smoking in France = 5863, to the exact death. And, from 2500 deaths due to passive smoking, we just jumped to 5863, according to a study called ‘’Lifting the Smoke Screen’’, which is a European study, and 5863, is for France, but the study is about all of Europe. The anti-tobacco crowd, who are favored by the media, immediately rounded this to 6000 deaths. And these 6000 deaths - 5000 or 6000 depending on the versions - have been used by deputy Bur, in order to obtain this extremely restrictive legislation.
But what do we see when we revisit this study? We see that these 5863 deaths include a majority of smokers! Of which, in fact, 5574 are smokers exposed at home, to whom this legislation will have no effect - as long as we don’t control people’s homes - and we find 289 smokers at work, of which 25 in bars, hotels, restaurants and night clubs. Therefore, it pertains to the general population. But when we are interested in non-smokers only – which is the real definition of passive smoking – the passive smoking percentage of an active smoker, was calculated in a particularly twisted way. In other words, you smoke in your office, (you heard well)…you directly inhale the smoke, but you also inhale the smoke in your office, and therefore you are a victim of passive smoking, and we must protect you from this passive smoking. So, if we focus nevertheless on non-smokers, we notice that the numbers decrease tremendously, since according to this report, there are only 1114 non-smokers, who are computed as ‘’deaths due to passive smoking’’. But in these 1114, there are 1007 who are related to home smoking and only 107 that are work-related passive smoking deaths, of which, 6 in hotels, restaurants, bars and night clubs.
But again, if we push this even further: how did they calculate the number of ‘’non-smokers’’ ? Come-on, it’s very easy! We take the percentage of smokers in a given population – as we saw previously in the case of France, we didn’t know whether it was 30,4 or 44% - we multiply the number (the population) by this percentage, and we obtain the smoking population; we subtract this number of smokers from the total population and we obtain the number of non-smokers. In other words, we will include in the ‘’non-smokers’’, all former smokers. We know very well that we don’t have the same risk factor of someone who has never smoked when we have been smoking for the last 30 years and we only stopped 15 days ago! According to the famous studies of the British doctors, the risk still stands at 6 between 4 and 9 years of cessation, for lung cancer. Thus the influence of ex-smokers is of extreme importance in this issue. And since ex-smokers represent approximately 40% of people who don’t smoke -- 48% and 52% are never smokers -- we then realize that the number of true non-smokers, who have never smoked, who will have a risk because of passive smoking in bars, hotels, restaurants, discotheques, these places where it is absolutely imperative to stop smoking because of the risks to the staff -- estimated using a scoop as a measuring tool -- is 2 !
There you have it! It is a point that I will try to bring forth: My chances of success are very limited.
I have nothing against pharmas. What I am against, is their marketing. Thankfully, some pharmas supply us with effective medication, and some supply us with effective antibiotics. Thankfully. But the big problem is that there is presently a perversion.. .well, the magnitude of their gigantic dimensions, leads them, to just about drive health policies. There is lack of courage in the media. I think that it is because of the financial dominance of the advertisers. Nicotine presently costs, if you buy it at Fluka -- that is an international chemical product company -- 440 euros per liter. An average cigarette will deliver to you about 0,8 mg of nicotine -- since there are 1 million of 1mg in one liter – it would mean 1 200 000 cigarettes. In other words with one euro -- and you can calculate it -- you would buy 143 packs of cigarettes.
Dr G : Yes but there is still the paper…
Pr Molimard: Perhaps. I am talking about the nicotine amounts. To sell nicotine in order to help people quit smoking, which was not a bad idea I must say, would not profit. So they created a fantastic hoax. This fantastic hoax, is called: Nicotine Addiction Report by the American Surgeon General, 1988. They really had to make up this report, because I witness ‘’tobacco addictions’’ on a daily basis. Cigarette addictions? You don,t have to look for them. I am still looking for nicotine addicts however. We have known of nicotine for 200 years, therefore allow me to tell you that you will not find a drug at 440 euros a litre. There are no drugs at this price! Nobody ever shot pure nicotine up their veins. There has never been any nicotine illicit traffic. There is an extraordinary addiction to tobacco. There is no nicotine addiction.
Dr G : None at all, or only a little…
Pr Molimard: None at all. No nicotine addiction. When you look for example at people who were heavily addicted to tobacco, who have stopped using patches for example, if they had been addicted to nicotine, at the end of a year you would find people who…do you know what the percentage of people who continue using patches is? 1%
Dr G : 1% who continue using patches after a year, is not enormous…
Pr Molimard: About nicotine gums, do you know how many people continue after a year they have stopped smoking, to chew nicotine gum ? There is of course the act of chewing itself, and we know that very well, all we have to look at, are the jaw muscles of some "Hollywood chewing gum" chewers, there is such a thing as a chewing habit. 7%. I guarantee you that if I used an inhaler, or heroin gums to wean heroin addicts, I would have more than 7%.
Chapter 3
Pr Molimard: I never succeeded to get rats to push on a lever to get them to maintain their nicotine levels. We install a lever, when the lever is pushed, it activates a syringe. With cocaine, the rats would go at it, toc, toc, toc , 300 times a day. With nicotine? Never. Tobacco addiction is amazing. Nicotine addiction, no. ‘’Nicotine Addiction’’. Why did this book under such a title get published in 1988? They could have named it ‘’Tobacco Addiction: The role of nicotine’’…They named it ‘’Nicotine Addiction’’. It means that in 1988 they were already set up for their offensive. And they called that offensive : ‘’nicotine substitutes’’. Why did they call it ‘’nicotine substitutes’’? Because they wanted to benefit from the aura of opiate substitution. Meaning, that with a heroin or morphine addict, we have to resupply him quickly because heroin leaves the body quickly. We will instead supply him with another opiate, namely methadone, which instead of being eliminated in a few hours, will only be eliminated by half, in 24 hours. Therefore that will give him a relatively prolonged appeasement, as long as he takes his dosage every 24 hours, that you give him an opiate with different characteristics than his own, which will allow him to go back to society, without having to waste time looking for his product. But if we believe that nicotine is THE drug in tobacco, and we give nicotine to a smoker, it’s as if we were giving heroin to a heroin addict. It is not a substitute, it is administering him his own drug !
Dr G : Which on top of it, it is not…
Pr Molimard: As if the term ‘’nicotine substitution’’ is not abusive enough, since it is not a substitution : we give the smoker the product. And on the other hand, this presumes something that would mean that nicotine is the factor of the addiction. But it doesn’t resume it, people do not drug themselves with it, there aren’t any nicotine junkies. Nobody will experiment with patches or gums. They have always been perfectly addicted on tobacco. Therefore, it is not a substitution, and the proof comes with Sweden’s oral tobacco. There are as many tobacco users as in France. Approximately 40% of Swedes, use tobacco. But of these 40%, half of them already switched to ‘’snus’’. They don’t switch to gum. People don’t like the gum. They give up. Even when it’s free, the average length of use of nicotine gums, is 21 days.
Passive smoking, is a war weapon that is unfortunately proving to be efficient by completely disorganizing the culture of a country, disorganizing professions, but whose effects when it comes to reducing tobacco prevalence, -- the decrease of smoking dangers – will in my opinion be perverse. And it is these same anti-tobacco activists who succeeded to blockade the sale of snus – which is the absolute weapon against passive smoking. Because snus, this type of tobacco that the Swedes put in their mouth – does not produce smoke! It does not produce carbon monoxide. It is not a nuisance to the neighbor. If someone places a snus in their mouth at the same time I am being served my favorite meal, I will not complain.
We might just find the answer right in the report ‘’Lifting the Smoke Screen’’. When you look at the preface of this report, what do you think you read?
In countries which have enacted and enforced legislation, support for the law is over 75%.These figures show that the public wants this legislation and that politicians should not be afraid to sponsor and vote for smoke free laws.
And indeed they are not, as the response to the Smoke free Europe Conference on 2 June 2005 revealed4. Held in Luxembourg under the auspices of the Luxembourg Presidency of the EU, and organised by the commissioning organisations of this report with sponsorship from GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer, the conference brought together at European level for the first time health organisations, leading researchers and representatives of Europe’s public and private sector employers, trades unions, occupational health inspectors, the European Commission and politicians to debate smoke free policy. In total, nine serving ministers of health and/or employment plus the ex-health minister of Italy spoke at the event
And so, who profits from the situation? Do the European Commission, Europe, the health ministers, actually need, in order to pay for their sandwiches , the support of GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer the big pharmaceutical multinationals that manufacture and market medication to stop smoking?
Dr G : Patches, the…
Pr Molimard: It’s very obvious! And from their side, the defenders of what they call ‘’nicotine substitutes’’, claim : ‘’Oh but you know of course that there is ‘’bad’’ nicotine which is contained in cigarettes and there is ‘’good nicotine which is in the patches and gums’’. They even went as far as saying: ‘’Lower your risk by continuing to smoke, but chew a nicotine gum at the same time, you will inhale less, and you will therefore lower your risk’’.
Dr G : This been said, between a patch and a cigarette, it's still the patch that is less dangerous since we don’t inhale …
Pr Molimard: Providing that you only use the patches and that you don’t continue to smoke at the same time. But as it stands…You have to look at what happened. At first, they were selling patches, and gums under medical prescription. They realized that they weren’t selling enough. Doctors were not motivated. Thus, they fought to get France to accept that they sell them without prescription. You only have to go to the pharmacist and ask: ‘’I would like patches or I would like gums’’. There you go. You don’t need a prescription. But with these prescriptions, that have at best a 1,6 times the result of a placebo, with these products, what has pushed them to switch to ‘’over the counter’’, is, that from the moment that you have medication that is of public domain, you can advertize it. You have seen advertizing for the gums, for the patches, on the rear end of buses, on television etc.. But theoretically, according to social security and public health regulations, when you advertize a medication freely, the medication can no longer be reimbursed. Well, they succeeded to obtain from social security that 50 euros per year per smoker, be reimbursed for medication that they continue to advertize. I call this organized pillaging of social security.
Dr G : Body guards?
Pr Molimard: But they realized that they weren’t selling enough, that it wasn’t catching on. At that point, they began saying that there are some unfortunate people who have respiratory insufficiency, but are unable to go without tobacco. So what you will tell them is: ‘’You will reduce your risk if you chew a gum at the same time’’. That is criminal! It is criminal, because you’re encouraging someone to continue smoking. That’s what the patient understands. ‘’I will reduce my risk, because I inhale a little less.’’ The problem is, that they are forgetting what Professor Doll has taught us with his famous study of the 36,000 British doctors who were followed for 40 years. What did he tell us? He told us: ‘’What is important is the length of time you smoke’’. Catherine Hill interpreted what Doll taught on lung cancer in a relatively simple way: If you multiply by 2 the number of cigarettes that you smoke everyday, you multiply by 2 your risk for cancer. But if you multiply by 2 the time period that you smoke, you multiply by 2 to the power of 4 ½, and 2 to the power of 4 ½, is 23!
What seriously matters, is how long we smoke. And all we can tell a smoker is: ‘’Smoke 4 Davidoffs, 5 packs a day, but stop as soon as possible!!’’ Because it’s the duration that matters, and if you encourage a smoker – because he’ll use a piece of gum, or a patch or an inhalator – that he will lower…there is a study with inhalatorers, that states that if you lower by 10, by 15% the inhalation, you will lower your risk by 15%, providing that you use the inhaler for LIFE ! But if you prolong…then the 4 ½ power comes in that will stay in effect during all the time you smoke. It’s criminal. I said it. It didn’t please them!
Chapter 4
Pr Molimard: Presently in Europe, general smoking bans are being instituted for the sole purpose of financial profits. And I believe that we have bypassed cultural traditions and we are being imposed an American style, Manichaean dogma, in the name of profit.
We can easily imagine an owner of a restaurant deciding that ‘’in my establishment, there is no smoking, in my restaurant there is no smoking, in my discotheque there is no smoking’’ or decide that ‘’there is smoking’’, or even ‘’no smoking between such and such time’’. Accommodations are possible.
But as it stands, we are dealing with a fascistic intrusion. Everyone knows it, we see it. The same applies to noise. It’s the same thing. We could demand that patrons maintain a monastic silence in restaurants! The American state of mind is truly Manichaean, truly dualistic. It’s good versus bad, be it tobacco smoke or be it alcohol. These prohibitionist tendencies are making their way a little at a time into our culture and let’s not forget the religious aspects with the proverbial American evangelists. This whole philosophy of good versus bad goes back to 300 or 400 AD. It’s the religion of Manes, it’s Manichaean. Beware the demon! We must vanquish the demon! As you know, however, there are many shades of grey in our existence.
Behind it all, there is evidently financial gain. Because the connection is perfectly clear, the conference that was held in Luxembourg will impose this prohibitionist vision on all of Europe, including France. In my opinion, there is big money behind all of this. You see, it is in my opinion quite incredible that with products, I am thinking of Nicotine; it’s strange when you think of it, but I have witnessed it in my lab, it has a satiating effect. I’ve seen this in my laboratory. If you smoke cigarettes that have a high nicotine content, you tend to inhale less and to smoke less. But in this case, we shouldn’t have prohibited the sale of cigarettes with over 1 mg yield! What we should have told them is, to produce products with a high nicotine yield, less tar and fewer nitrosamines. Smokers would have been less inclined to inhale deeply or even to inhale at all, in order to absorb a useful dose of nicotine. But oh no, they banned yields of 1 mg. or more, while no cigarettes on sale in Europe at the time, exceeded .8 mg. The tobacco companies didn’t care, why would they?
The tobacco industry produced “light cigarettes’’. We fought the tobacco industry claiming: ‘’Your light cigarette is a lie, because this light cigarette is only light for the smoking machine and a smoker doesn’t necessarily smoke like a smoking machine. The smoker will increase the size of the puffs, the amount of puffs that he will obtain from a cigarette, he will smoke until there is no tobacco left in the butt, and he will succeed to obtain exactly what he wants. So if you indicate on the packs that there is a 0,1 mg of nicotine and 9 mg of tars, it doesn’t mean a thing, you are liars and fraudsters’’.
At the same time, even though it has been demonstrated that measured levels of tar account for little, since their carcinogenic yield varies widely, and often cigarettes that are lower in tar will yield higher amounts of nitrosamines which are considerably more carcinogenic, the European Union continues demanding reductions in nicotine and tar yields…But, in the process, it is endorsing the idea that low machine-tested nicotine and tar cigarettes, are less dangerous.
Dr G : Light cigarettes
Pr Molimard: Thus, they endorse light cigarettes ! Cigarettes that we know are as dangerous as the others. This is evidence of utter incompetence from a tobaccological point of view, on behalf of the decision makers. Incompetence from a technical point of view, since they reach such an endorsement, total incompetence when it comes to the smoker’s psychology point of view, from the sociological point of view when it comes to tobacco, which leads to legislative measures that in the end only strengthen the defense mechanisms, and go totally in the opposite direction of the public health goals.
What is important for a smoker, is the environment in which it happens. The cigarette becomes important because it is part of that environment. But it is parasitical. And it is not the nicotine that is important. And this is why the smoker does not like nicotine patches nor does he like nicotine gums. The aroma of snus however, is part of the environment. And when you adhere to the aroma of snus …and nicotine, even if it’s only accessorial, the importance is that tobacco be present, that there are elements that appeal to the senses that will be associated with it.
In 2004, a request to the EU backed by Fagerström – that famous addiction test -, by Clive Bates, Kozlowski, Martin Jarvis, people who know their way around tobacco issues, who claimed that 98% of risks would be reduced if all smokers adopted the snus, or sucked tobacco. Well these people, supported Germany and Great Britain who requested that snus prohibition be lifted in Europe. Why is it sold in Sweden? When the Swedes joined the EU, they did so with the proviso that no one would “touch their snus” in order that they continue to produce and market it. Well, on December 14th 2004, The European Court of Justice upheld the EU’s decision to ban the sale of snus in Europe. We can ask ourselves some questions: Why? It’s clear that big tobacco – BAT, Philip Morris, Imperial Tobacco etc.. – did not believe in the snus. They weren’t ready. Consequently, they were not keen on the idea of having a junior player like Swedish Match nipping at their heels, by taking over the market, consequently they were against it . The patch and gum manufacturers figured that Europeans should chew on nicotine gums, consequently they were against it . The governments, i,e in France, where cigarette tax revenues ring the cash register to the tune of 11 or 13 billion euros a year, they were in no disposition to change anything that might bring in less. And finally the anti-smoking activists weren’t at all keen on the idea either. The result was that on December 14, 2004 the Court of Justice upheld the prohibition. However, mark my words. I know that BAT and Philip Morris now have their snus. Do they manufacture it themselves or do they have a deal with Swedish Match, I really don’t know. There will be a new request and I hope the sale of snus will finally be authorized in Europe.
You can download the European report ‘’Lifting the Smoke Screen’’ at http://www.ersnet.org
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