Philip Morris Scientist William Dunn: "Cigarette smoke is a drug"

This article is part of the Tobacco portal on Sourcewatch funded from 2006 - 2009 by the American Legacy Foundation.

This confidential, internal Philip Morris memo titled "Jet's Money Offer," has been used as a trial exhibit in cases against the industry including Minnesota, Texas and more recently in the Boeken case in California. In it, author William L. Dunn, Jr. of PM comments on potential areas of research proposed by J. E. ("Jet") Lincoln, another PM employee, that could prove beneficial for PM. In the memo, Dunn proposes support for Lincoln's research ideas, saying "Who ain't for more money?"

In the memo, Dunn cautions against doing research that could be construed as an admission that cigarette smoke is a drug:

"...do we really want to tout cigarette smoke as a drug? It is, of course, but there are dangerous F.D.A. implications to have such conceptualization go beyond these walls."

Dunn concludes by saying that if they could understand the "reinforcing mechanism" of cigarette smoking, "we are potentially more able to upgrade our product."

Related Sourcewatch resources

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