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Tobacco
and Animal Cruelty
Big Tobacco has been shameless in its disregard for
human life-but its disregard extends to animal life,
too. The tobacco industry uses animals to test the
effectiveness of new products. Cats, frogs, rats,
guinea pigs, and dogs are just some of the animals
that have been used for experimentation by Big
Tobacco. Animals have even been used to prove that
tobacco is harmful. Dogs first proved that cigarette
smoke was a carcinogen when some Beagles were given
tracheostomies and then exposed to cigarette smoke
through machines.1
See Now
in : http://www.peta.org/feat/wackypacks
In the case of R.J. Reynolds (RJR), corporate interest
in animals goes well beyond its Camel cigarettes. In
1989, RJR was working on a "safer" cigarette
called Premier, but Premier was not going over well
with humans because it required a big drag in order to
draw the smoke out. So, RJR decided to see how baboons
used Premier in order to make Premier cigarettes a
better "drug delivery device" for humans.2
RJR commissioned a study where baboons were made to
smoke crack cocaine through Premier cigarettes. The
study was designed to demonstrate to RJR whether
strong addictions helped the subject overcome
difficulties with drawing smoke from Premier.
The crack was provided by the Georgia Bureau of
Investigation, who gave RJR a supply of 90 to 95%
pure, free-base cocaine. For control groups, some
monkeys were given cocaine intravenously, and another
set of monkeys smoked regular cigarettes.
RJR was at a loss again, though, as even crack did not
make the baboons smoke Premier cigarettes
"effectively." The researcher lamented,
"I am sorry to hear that the samples from the
animals who smoked Premier cigarettes loaded with
crack were relatively low in cocaine content. ... As
are humans, baboons are very sensitive to draw
resistance."2
In 1992, when RJR was under fire for its animal
testing, RJR proclaimed that the use of experimental
animals at RJR was restricted, as "the only
animals used are rats and mice."3
RJR's cover-up reflects their unwillingness to admit
to the true extent of their animal cruelty.
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