Nicotine is not addictive
| Nicotine is not addictive | |
|---|---|
| FALSE | |
| "Nicotine is not addictive, as the heads of the major US tobacco companies testified to Congress in 1994." | |
| Domain | Health & Medicine |
| Tactic | Fabrication Propaganda Technique |
| Era | Historical |
| First seen | 1994 |
| Origin | Testimony by seven tobacco company CEOs before the House Subcommittee on Health and the Environment, April 14, 1994 |
| Last reviewed | 2026-10-30 |
| Further reading: books on Health & Medicine | |
On April 14, 1994, the chief executives of the seven largest US tobacco companies appeared before a House subcommittee chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman. One by one, under oath, each said he believed nicotine was not addictive.
Their own companies' internal documents had said otherwise for decades.
What the evidence shows
- Internal documents. In 1963, Brown & Williamson's general counsel Addison Yeaman wrote that "nicotine is addictive. We are, then, in the business of selling nicotine, an addictive drug." Internal research at several companies studied nicotine's addictive effects.
- Surgeon General. The 1988 Surgeon General's report concluded that cigarettes and other forms of tobacco are addicting and that nicotine is the drug that causes addiction.
- Court finding. In United States v. Philip Morris (2006), Judge Gladys Kessler found the companies had falsely denied that nicotine is addictive while manipulating nicotine delivery.
Why it matters
The hearing became an emblem of corporate denial. Internal documents released in later litigation showed the executives' companies had long understood the opposite of what was said.
Gaslighting Telling smokers under oath that nicotine is not addictive, when they could feel otherwise, is a famous case of corporate gaslighting. The word comes from Patrick Hamilton's 1938 play Gas Light and the 1944 film Gaslight, in which a husband dims the gas lamps and insists his wife is imagining it. Where the word comes from · More gaslighting cases
Sources
- US House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Health and the Environment, hearing on regulation of tobacco products, April 14, 1994.
- US Department of Health and Human Services, The Health Consequences of Smoking: Nicotine Addiction, Surgeon General's report, 1988.
- United States v. Philip Morris USA, Inc., 449 F. Supp. 2d 1 (D.D.C. 2006).