Southampton Research Conference, 1962

BAT held periodic research conferences so that scientists and executives from its subsidiaries around the world could share the results of their research and discuss various issues affecting the industry. The 1962 BAT research conference was held in Southampton, England, and was attended by twenty-nine BAT representatives from five countries. The United States and Canada sent four delegates each. The report from the conference is fifty-five pages long and discusses a wide range of topics related to smoking and health. In this chapter we limit our discussion to the portions of the Southampton conference that are relevant to nicotine. (Chapter 4 examines the smoking and health dimensions of this conference.)

The keynote address for the Southampton meeting was delivered by Sir Charles Ellis, an executive in the Research and Development Establishment at BAT's Millbank headquarters in London. In his keynote address, Sir Charles attempts to explain the conclusions of the British Royal College of Physicians' (RCP) first report on smoking and health, which had been released a few months earlier (9). The RCP report concluded that smoking causes lung cancer and that the British government should take "decisive steps" to control the rising consumption of cigarettes in the United Kingdom. According to Sir Charles, the authors of this report were predisposed to believing that cigarettes are harmful. One reason for this belief:

... smoking is a habit of addiction that is pleasurable; many people, therefore, find themselves sub-consciously prepared to believe that it must be wrong [emphasis added]. {1102.01, p. 4}

Later during his address, Sir Charles acknowledges that nicotine is the substance responsible for the addictiveness of smoking. However, he also appears to believe that nicotine has beneficial properties, which studies supported by the Tobacco Manufacturers' Standing Committee (TMSC, see chapter 2) are now investigating.

One result of the recent public discussions on smoking and health must have been to make each of us examine whether smoking is just a habit of addiction or has any positive benefits. It is my conviction that nicotine is a very remarkable beneficent drug that both helps the body to resist external stress and also can as a result show a pronounced tranquillising effect. You are all aware of the very great increase in the use of artificial controls, stimulants, tranquillisers, sleeping pills, and it is a fact that under modern conditions of life people find that they cannot depend just on their subconscious reactions to meet the various environmental strains with which they are confronted: they must have drugs available which they can take when they feel the need. Nicotine is not only a very fine drug, but the technique of administration by smoking has considerable psychological advantages and a built-in control against excessive absorption. It is almost impossible to take an overdose of nicotine in the way it is only too easy to do with sleeping pills. Perhaps, therefore, in the midst of all this consideration of the possible harmful effects of smoking you will be pleased to hear that T.M.S.C. is supporting work to elucidate the effects of nicotine as a beneficent alkaloid drug.

We have almost completed arrangements to support Dr. M. J. Rand at the London School of Pharmacy to investigate whether cigarette smoke produces effects on the central nervous system characteristic of tranquillising or stimulating drugs and, if so, to see if such activity is due solely to nicotine. The cost is likely to be about £13,000 in three years.

We attach so much importance to this aspect of our research that we are proposing to start active work at Harrogate with our own permanent staff. Arrangements are practically completed with Dr. [A. K.] Armitage to start at Harrogate to work on the pharmacology of smoke, and we are fortunate in having the distinguished Dr. [J. H.] Burn to act as consultant and advise us on the direction of this work [emphasis added]. {1102.01, pp. 15–16}

The Southampton conference report includes a detailed summary of the discussion following Sir Charles's keynote address. While there was a brisk debate over the directions BAT research should take (discussed in chapter 4), there was no apparent disagreement with Sir Charles's characterization of nicotine as addictive, with his comments on its other pharmacological properties, or with his characterization of nicotine as a drug.