Tobacco and Public Health - TCSC Indonesia

MIRJANA V. DJORDJEVIC 187
turing a consistent product, tobacco blends are usually made using the crops from previous
years. The burning rate of cigarettes also influences smoke yields (a faster burn
rate results in a lower tar yield).
In 1998, there were 1294 brands of cigarettes on the US market for which the
emissions of tar, nicotine, and carbon monoxide (CO) had been established (U.S. FTC
2000). These emissions have been systematically reported by the U.S. Federal Trade
Commission (FTC) since 1969. The reported values were based on a standardized
machine-smoking procedure first described by Bradford et al. in 1936 and later
adopted, with some modifications, by the U.S. FTC (Pillsbury et al. 1969). According to
this method, the smoking machine is set up to draw 35-mL puffs of 2 seconds duration
once per minute until the predetermined butt length has been reached (23 mm for
non-filtered cigarettes, or the length of filter over wrapping paper plus 3 mm for
filtered cigarettes). Ventilation holes (when applicable) are not blocked during
machine-smoking. The FTC method which is used in the US is very similar to the
methods of the International Standard Organization (ISO) and Cooperation Center
for Scientific Research Relative to Tobacco (CORESTA) which are used throughout the
rest of the world (Eberhardt and Scherer 1995; Baker 2002).
The MS yields of contemporary brands in the US range from < 0.05 to 2 mg nicotine,
< 0.5 to 27 mg tar, and < 0.5 to 18 mg CO per cigarette. The sales-weighted average nicotine
and tar smoke yields are now 0.9 and 12 mg per cigarette, compared to 1.4 and
21.6 mg, respectively, in 1968: a decrease of 40% (U.S. FTC 2000). The tar and nicotine
reduction has been achieved by several methods, including reducing tobacco weight,
increasing filtration, implementing air dilution through ventilation holes on the filter
tips or using porous wrapping paper, reconstituted and expanded tobacco, chemical
additives (to control the combustion rate), and performing specific agronomic practices.
In the United Kingdom, sales-weighted average machine-measured tar yields have
declined steadily: in 1999 were 9.2 mg per cigarette, less than half their 1972 level
(Jarvis 2001). Over the same period, nicotine yields have come down from 1.33 to 0.8 mg
per cigarette. Carbon monoxide yields have shown smaller declines. At the same
time as absolute yields have declined, there have also been changes in tar to nicotine ratios.
In 1999, smokers in the UK were exposed to 22% less tar per unit of nicotine than
in 1973. During 1983–1990, a number of studies investigated the yields and range of
additional smoke constituents (e.g. hydrogen cyanide, aldehydes, acrolein, nitric oxide,
low-molecular weight phenols and polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons [PAH]) and their
inter-relationship with the routinely monitored agents (Philips and Waller 1991). The
authors concluded that the routinely monitored tar, nicotine, and CO provide an
adequate guide to the deliveries of other analytes of interest in MS of British cigarettes
except of nitric oxide, which is strongly dependent on tobacco type, and some phenols,
and PAH.
The data presented in Table 9.3 show a wide range of emissions of nicotine (0.1–2.7 mg
per cigarette), tar (1–44 mg per cigarette), and TSNA in the mainstream smoke of