Smoking: Health Effects and Control

Abstract

The Changing CigaretteBetween 1954 and 1983 the introduction of filters and low-tar cigarettes in response to consumer demand led to a decline in the average tar content of a cigarette in the United States of more than two thirds — from 38 mg to below 12 mg per cigarette — and the average nicotine content decreased from 2.3 mg to slightly below 1.2 mg.^{88 89 90} Since their introduction to the U.S. cigarette market in the late 1960s and the early 1970s, low-tar-and-nicotine cigarettes (defined as having less than 15 mg of tar per cigarette) have rapidly increased their market share . . .