From: [m--eg--n] at [ix.netcom.com] (Marnie Regen )
Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs,alt.drugs.culture,alt.drugs.pot,rec.drugs.cannabis
Subject: Philip Morris: Nicotine = Coke
Date: 9 Dec 1995 18:59:13 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) -- An internal report from a major cigarette maker 
concedes that nicotine is chemically similar to cocaine and people 
smoke primarily to get the substance into their bodies, The Wall 
Street Journal reported Friday.  
        The 15-page Philip Morris draft report likens nicotine to a drug 
in both its composition and effects on the brain, the newspaper 
said.  
        In calling nicotine a ``similar, organic chemical'' to such 
drugs as cocaine, morphine, quinine and atropine, the document 
states that ``while each of these substances can be used to affect 
human physiology, nicotine has a particularly broad range of 
influence.''  
        Steven Parrish, Philip Morris' top spokesman, told the newspaper 
that the document was written by a non-scientist and does not 
reflect the views of the company on nicotine or smoking.  
        The confidential internal report, which was undated, proposed a 
safer cigarette with the code name ``Table,'' the paper said. The 
newspaper quoted an unidentified company spokesman as saying that a 
task force working on Project Table disbanded in late 1992 after 
making a presentation to senior management.  
        The role of nicotine is central to attacks on the tobacco 
industry by federal regulators and states and individuals bringing 
lawsuits. Plaintiffs' attorneys and four state governments have 
filed lawsuits alleging tobacco companies have known for years that 
smoking is addictive but have hidden the information from the 
public.  
        The Food and Drug Administration also is trying to regulate 
cigarettes as drugs, arguing that cigarettes' main function is to 
supply nicotine to smokers. Government scientists have said 
nicotine is the addictive component in cigarettes, a claim that the 
tobacco industry rejects.  
        ``This is one more example of what tobacco industry officials 
knew and said about nicotine before we did,'' FDA Commissioner 
David Kessler said in response to the newspaper's report.  
        The document states that nicotine mimics a chemical that 
controls heart rate and message-sending within the brain, and that 
it ``is used to change psychological states leading to enhanced 
mental performance and relaxation.''  
        ``A smoker learns to control the delivery of nicotine through 
the smoking technique to create the desired mood state,'' the 
newspaper quoted the memo as saying.  
        Scientists expressed astonishment at what they regard as 
admissions in the document, the paper said.  
        The Philip Morris report is a ``blunt recognition of what public 
health scientists have been saying all along -- that the critical 
effects of nicotine are those in the brain and not in the mouth,'' 
said Jack Henningfield, chief of the pharmacology branch at the 
government's National Institute on Drug Abuse.  
        Neal Benowitz, a nicotine research specialist at the University 
of California in San Francisco, told the newspaper, ``This sounds 
like an excerpt from the surgeon general's report. This is very 
much the current view on the role of nicotine acting on the brain 
to produce addiction.''  
        Parrish, however, said, ``We have acknowledged in public 
documents that nicotine, like many, many other things, has 
pharmacological effects, but that doesn't mean that cigarette 
smoking is addictive.''