Safer cigarettes? That's just blowing smoke

Suggestions of a "safer" cigarette create a new challenge for physicians treating their smoking patients.

Editorial. Nov. 26, 2001.

The magazine ad announcing the launch of Omni cigarettes isn't quite on the level of "Less Cancer, Tastes Great" but it comes pretty close.

Tucked into People magazine, a fixture in most doctors' waiting rooms, a double-page ad touts Omni as "The first reduced carcinogen cigarette" -- itself an attempt at accentuating the positive that's worthy of a double take -- "that tastes, smokes and burns just like any other premium cigarette."

To take the Omni ad at its word, this new cigarette is targeted at the nearly 50 million Americans who already smoke. "Now," Omni suggests, "there's actually a reason to change brands." If even a small fraction of them do, Omni maker Vector Group Ltd. stands to harvest a fortune.

Such is the first big splash in the next wave for the tobacco industry, the safer cigarette -- although none of the companies involved would ever dare call them that. Instead, Omni's maker says that its product is "a major step in the right direction." (Nearly identical language from Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. -- one of two other companies now test-marketing a similar product -- suggests just how challenging it has become for tobacco makers to say anything good about their products. B&W says its Advance Lights are an "important step in the right direction.")

Not to pick on Omni, but it is the first such brand to go national and smokers everywhere are most likely to see its pitch first. They may be impressed. Omni says its additive and filter combination takes out "carcinogenic PAHs, nitrosamines and catechols, which are the major causes of lung cancer in smokers."

But it is Omni's own, blunt warning label that makes the point smokers need to understand: "Reductions in carcinogens ... have NOT been proven to result in a safer cigarette." All told, there are about 4,000 chemicals in every puff from a cigarette. Even with the mountain of data proving the harmful effects of cigarette smoke, there is much yet to know about the chemicals' dangerous interactions.

It will be years -- if ever -- before we really understand if there is any net advantage at all in picking Omni or its implied reduced-risk competitors over traditional brands. In the ad we saw, Omni acknowledged that cigarettes are "hazardous" and "dangerous" but did not mention the smoking-related, non-cancer risks of heart disease and emphysema.

The real right direction for cigarette use -- the message the patient needs to hear from the doctor -- is to quit smoking. Nicotine patches and other medical approaches may still be far from perfect but they have helped many patients quit the habit. It's always worth a try.

Belief that a truly safer cigarette is already out there will likely help short-circuit such attempts. These new cigarettes may keep people smoking longer, make it easier to return to smoking, or even to take it up. It's what happened with the reduced tar and nicotine cigarettes starting in the 1970s, with tragic results.

Omni's name is suggestive of "everywhere," and that's certainly as far as it and the other brands can plant the notion of a safer smoke. Meanwhile, what could have held that message in check is headed nowhere. What little momentum there was for congressional approval of Food and Drug Administration oversight of tobacco had faded even before the Sept. 11 attack. It's very unlikely a Congress now focused on the war and the economy will return to the issue anytime soon.

That leaves it up to physicians and other members of the public health community to debunk the notion of the safer cigarette.