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The modern cigarette, an unregulated disaster

Nigel J Gray
Med J Aust 2007; 187 (9): . || doi: 10.5694/j.1326-5377.2007.tb01388.x
Published online: 5 November 2007

Regulation of tobacco products and their emissions is long, long overdue

The modern cigarette is an unmitigated public health disaster, more so than tobacco used in any other form. Together with other types of tobacco product, cigarettes are responsible for several million global deaths annually and expected to cause about 10 million annually by 2030.1 Modern cigarettes are uniquely efficient nicotine delivery devices because of sophisticated technology that controls such elements as pH and droplet size, and consequently provides rapid absorption and a rapid nicotine “fix” while using less tobacco, but many more additives, than its Second World War predecessor.2


  • The Cancer Council Victoria, Melbourne, VIC.


Correspondence: nigel@uicc.org

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  • 2. Gray N. The consequences of the unregulated cigarette. Tob Control 2006; 15: 405-408.
  • 3. Hill DJ, White VM, Scollo MM. Smoking behaviour of Australian adults in 1995: trends and concerns. Med J Aust 1998; 168: 209-213. <MJA full text>
  • 4. World Health Organization Study Group on Tobacco Product Regulation. The scientific basis of tobacco product regulation. Geneva: WHO, 2007. (WHO Technical Report Series 945.)
  • 5. Houston C. Revealed: tobacco giant’s new weapon. The Age (Melbourne) 2007; 27 Jun: 1.
  • 6. Gray N, Zaridze D, Robertson C, et al. Variation within global cigarette brands in tar, nicotine, and certain nitrosamines: analytic study. Tob Control 2000; 9: 351.
  • 7. Hurt RD, Robertson CR. Prying open the door to the tobacco industry’s secrets about nicotine: the Minnesota Tobacco Trial. JAMA 1998; 280: 1173-1181.
  • 8. Wayne GF, Connolly GN. How cigarette design can affect youth initiation into smoking: Camel cigarettes 1983–93. Tob Control 2002; 11 Suppl 1: I32-I39.

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