Physical indicators of actual tar and nicotine yields of cigarettes

By the late 1960s, cigarette tar was becoming officially dangerous to the health of smokers. Those who refused to stop smoking were encouraged to smoke lower tar and nicotine cigarettes. In 1967, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) established a laboratory to conduct standardized assays of the tar and nicotine yields of cigarettes. This standard smoking-machine procedure provided the yardstick by which all cigarettes were to be measured. Lower tar cigarettes, by definition, deliver lower tar when smoked in the standard fashion of one 2 second long, 35 ml puff each minute until a fixed butt length is reached. Except for small differences in rules for butt length, this machine procedure is the internationally standard way to smoke cigarettes in the analytical laboratory. Whenever and wherever (world-wide), one sees official tar and nicotine yields, whether in a United States Surgeon General's Report or on a billboard, one can assume that the brand in question has undergone this exact smoking regimen.