More than a decade after Big Tobacco apparently knuckled under to a coalition of 46 state attorneys-general, how is the industry faring? Like most such questions, that depends on who you ask. Ask Michael Cummings, PhD, of Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, N.Y. and he replies: “My impression is that the tobacco industry is on life support.” Ask economist Kenneth Warner, PhD, of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and he replies: “They’re doing fine.”

Other experts reached by MedPage Today had shades of opinion between those two poles.

Part of the reason for the differing views is that the effects of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement on the corporate health of the tobacco industry are hard to quantify – and probably not what most people would have expected.

The agreement – universally referred to as the MSA – had two main planks.

It required the tobacco companies to fork over $206 billion to the states involved over a 25-year period. So far — half way through — they’ve paid out some $80 billion.

But it also shielded the companies from individual lawsuits that could have cost far more as well as from competition from smaller tobacco firms that didn’t sign the deal.

The MSA was signed in November 1998, against a background of legal action against the industry. The attorneys-general of 46 states, as well as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands, entered into the agreement with the four largest manufacturers of cigarettes in the U.S. — Philip Morris USA, R.J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson, and Lorillard.

Florida, Minnesota, Texas, and Mississippi had already reached individual agreements with the industry.

Smoking Down, Income Up

The effect of the agreements was, predictably, an increase in cigarette prices. Many smokers greeted the increase by butting out, but it was what economist Warner calls a “little blip” in consumption.

Indeed, CDC data show that cigarette consumption, which had already been falling slowly for a decade, took a sudden 6% drop from 1997 to 1998 and fell again by another 7% over the following year.

The number of cigarettes sold in the U.S. dropped from 480 billion in 1997 to 465 billion the next year and 435 billion in 1999, eventually reaching 380 billion in 2006. The numbers have since stabilized, with the CDC reporting in September that just under one in five working Americans still smokes.

“The total consumption of cigarettes has massively declined since the MSA,” Cheryl Healton, DrPH, of the Washington-based American Legacy Foundation told MedPage Today. The foundation is one of the spin-offs of the settlement; it gets cash to pursue the public health end of the smoking issue.

But at the same time industry revenue has been going up.

For example, in a 2006 study published in Tobacco Control, Healton and colleagues examined the effect of the agreement on teenage smoking. They found that in 1997, high school seniors smoked 890 million packs of cigarettes, generating $737 million in revenue.

By 2002, high school seniors smoked only 541 million packs – but revenue from their smoking had increased to nearly $1.2 billion.

When you take all smokers into consideration, over the long haul the domestic tobacco industry has done very well indeed.

According to an industry analyst who did not want to be named, operating income from domestic cigarette sales (which excludes other forms of tobacco) has grown from $7.195 billion in 1996 to about $9.269 billion last year, even though the cigarette sales dropped more than 40% over that time.

That’s about a compound annual income growth rate of 2%, he noted.

States Looked to Cash In

If anyone was expecting the MSA to help control smoking and eventually shut down the industry, they were dreaming in Technicolor, according to Warner.

“It was not set up to be a tobacco-control settlement at all,” he said. “It was set up to get money to the states – and it worked.”

Still, if the states had used the money to support anti-smoking campaigns, the industry might have been hurt, according to Vince Willmore, communications vice-president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

The states involved said they would use the settlement cash to combat smoking, but they “have largely broken that promise,” he said.

Indeed, Healton said, “you can count on the fingers of one hand the number of states that spend what the CDC says needs to be spent on tobacco control.”

She contrasts her foundation’s yearly budget of about $70 million a year, with the $12.6 billion spent on tobacco marketing annually.

The industry is “trying very hard to keep as many paying customers as they can,” she said.

For instance, she said, they fight back violently against most attempts to influence the public against smoking. The most recent example is a lawsuit filed in August against the FDA by R.J. Reynolds, Lorillard, Commonwealth Brands, Liggett Group, and Santa Fe Natural Tobacco.

The five firms want to prevent the FDA from requiring graphic warning labels on cigarette packs. The U.S. market leader, Altria (owner of Philip Morris), did not join the suit.

Firms Face Bonanza Abroad

But if the big U.S. firms face a stagnant U.S. market that they must fight to protect, the rest of the world offers fertile ground for the tobacco industry – and a potential medical disaster of gargantuan proportions.

The World Health Organization estimates that half of current smokers will die prematurely of tobacco-related illness. Until recently, the developing world was relatively sheltered from that by poverty – when it’s a choice between cigarettes or food, most people opt to buy food.

But that is changing, according to Warner. Now more people can afford to smoke and international trade agreements make it hard to regulate the big international companies.

If the developing world embraces the allure of the cigarette with the same fervor the richer nations did 65 or 70 years ago – and especially if women take up the habit – the result would be hundreds of millions of deaths.

WHO estimates there were 100 million smoking-related deaths in the 20th century. “If we don’t do anything different,” Warner said, “that will be a billion in the 21st century.

The world’s largest tobacco company, interestingly, is China National Tobacco, a state-owned monopoly. It’s followed by some familiar names — Philip Morris International (spun off by Altria in 2007), British American Tobacco (which holds more than 40% of Reynolds), Altria, and Imperial Tobacco.

They have a huge potential market, but the catch for the world’s industry is that the Master Settlement Agreement mandated the release of reams and reams of documents and studies that made the dangers of tobacco crystal clear – and developing countries and their citizens are perfectly aware of those facts.

“The world is not ignorant of the health effects of smoking,” said Roswell Park’s Cummings.

That’s why African nations are spearheading WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, according to Cummings. The convention, now ratified by and binding on more than 170 countries, but not the U.S., aims at a universal set of standards that will limit the use of tobacco.

Giving the tobacco industry free rein, he said, means “short-term gain and a lot of long-term pain” for those nations, and their leaders know it.

In the developed world, he said, cigarette use has been falling – Australia’s smokers, for instance, now make up only 15% of the population “and the U.S. is heading in that direction” despite the recent stagnation.

And in the developing world, the ranks of smokers are not expanding as quickly as had been feared, Cummings noted. Thai men, for instance, are quitting and Thai women are not taking up the habit, and similar shifts are being seen in other countries.

Even the giant China National Tobacco, with about 40% of the world market, is pulling in its horns a bit – closing plants and reducing the number of its brands.

But the developing world remains a “battleground” for the tobacco industry, Cumming said, and even if the industry needs life support, it’s too early to call a time of death and wheel the gurney away.

The ANA (Association of National Advertisers) has filed a “friend of the court” brief in opposition to a series of graphic warnings required by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on all tobacco products and advertising. Six tobacco companies filed a lawsuit in federal court in DC challenging the new rules and are seeking a preliminary injunction.

The new FDA Graphic Warnings Rule was mandated by Congress under the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009. The FDA issued its final rule on June 21.

ANA says “these gruesome, graphic warnings for all tobacco ads and packages are so excessive that they clearly violate the First Amendment.” ANA was joined by the American Advertising Federation (AAF) in filing this brief.

Government and tobacco industry lawyers meet with a federal judge today concerning corrective statements the Justice Department wants made as part of a 12-year-old lawsuit. The judge ruled in 2006 that the tobacco industry had concealed the dangers of smoking for decades. If Judge Gladys Kessler approves, the proposed statements by the cigarette makers would become the remedy to ensure the companies don’t repeat the violation.

The Justice Department wants the largest cigarette manufacturers to set up and pay for an advertising campaign of self-criticism.
Among other things, The statements would admit deceit about the benefits of low-tar cigarettes and acknowledgments that nicotine was used to “keep customers coming back.”
Philip Morris USA, maker of Marlboro, the nation’s top-selling cigarette brand, says they are prepared to fight back.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy tapped a member of the legal team that helped bring Connecticut a multi-billion settlement against the tobacco industry one decade ago to become the new head of the Department of Consumer Protection. Malloy, who announced his selection of Hartford attorney William M. Rubenstein, 59, Monday morning in the Legislative Office Building, charged his new commissioner with keeping a close watch on the “charlatans” that are bilking consumers on ever-growing Internet markets.

“The Department of Consumer Protection has a broad mandate – spanning a range of marketplace regulation – from keeping the public safe from nefarious business practices and ensuring that professional licensure standards are maintained,” Malloy said. “Bill’s exhaustive experience in public service … leave me with no doubt that we have a commissioner who will be a diligent and thoughtful protector of, and advocate for, Connecticut residents.

Rubenstein, who will serve on an interim basis while his nomination is considered by the General Assembly, pledged that those who perpetrate fraud on consumers “deserve no quarter, and get no quarter on our watch.”

Though fraud isn’t limited to the Web, Rubenstein said the relative distance between merchant and consumer, and–in some instances–the speed with which transactions occur, make it easier for consumers to be mistreated.

For example, customers who used to be handed a paper contract or other type of formal agreement that they read carefully in front of a clerk or salesman now make purchases online through sites that allow them to swiftly “click through all of the ‘yes’ boxes,” without actually reading terms of sale.

But while the new commissioner said he wants to use department rules, consumer information, and new regulations and laws developed in cooperation with the legislature to better protect Internet customers, he also wants to department that fosters online commerce.

“I think we’re a far ways away from when most retailing was done by brick and mortar,” he said, adding that the efficiency of online purchasing does offer benefits to consumers.

As commissioner, Rubenstein will lead an agency with an $11 million annual budget and nearly 130 employees. His annual salary is $127,500, according to the governor’s office.

Rubenstein served in the Antitrust and Consumer Protection units within the Attorney General’s Office from 1986 through 1997. As an assistant attorney general in 1996, Rubenstein served on the legal team that represented Connecticut in a landmark lawsuit against five major tobacco companies, largely in response to marketing efforts aimed at teen smokers.

Connecticut was one of 46 states that participated in that case, which led to a 1998 settlement that awarded $246 billion settlement to the states, and dramatic new restrictions on how tobacco companies could market their products.

Connecticut was guaranteed between $3.6 billion and $5 billion of that settlement over 25 years. Since payments began in 2000, the state has received nearly $1.3 billion.

Prior to his service in the attorney general’s office, Rubenstein was counsel for the Federal Trade Commission. Most recently he has led the antitrust division at Axinn, Veltrop & Harkrider in Hartford, where he is a partner, and also has served as an adjunct professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law.

Rubenstein and his wife, Judith Eisenberg, live in West Hartford.

BIG tobacco is hoping a new multilateral free trade agreement will enable it to sue the Federal Government if Australia introduces plain packaging for cigarettes in mid-2012 as planned. Philip Morris wants a clause added to the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), currently being negotiated, which would allow the company to sue the commonwealth for damages internationally.

Health experts are calling on the Gillard Government to fight back by insisting on a counter-clause to make clear the regional agreement couldn’t restrict efforts “to prevent or reduce tobacco use”.

Associate Professor Thomas Faunce says Philip Morris has lobbied the United States Trade Representative regarding the TPPA.

In its submission the tobacco company argues plain packaging amounts to the theft of intellectual property.

Philip Morris also states plain packs, devoid of brand logos, images and colours, would limit “commercial free speech” and restrict competition.
It wants an investor-state dispute settlement provision inserted in the trade agreement that would allow it to sue governments that introduced legislation impeding foreign investment.

“Such provisions grant investors covered by them a right to initiate dispute-settlement proceedings for damages in international arbitration proceedings against foreign governments…without having to first seek damages in domestic courts,” Professor Faunce writes in the latest issue of the Medical Journal of Australia.

“The lawyers controlling such arbitral proceedings are appointed and paid at the behest of the parties and do not necessarily take account of domestic public health and environment protections.”

Professor Faunce, from the Australian National University, expects final negotiations on the TPPA to conclude this year with the agreement to enter into force in 2012.

“It’s very rare that you see a trade deal that’s substantially negotiated stop,” he told AAP.

“But there’s a strong chance we may be able to remove the investor-state clause component or significantly alter its application to Australia.”

Such a provision was expressly excluded from the 2005 bilateral Australia-US Free Trade Agreement.

But Professor Faunce says even if an investor-state clause finds its way into the final TPPA, the Federal Government can protect itself by passing domestic legislation.

“Parties may initiate interpretive declarations restricting the applicability of any investor-state dispute settlement provision … to their public health policies, legislation and regulations,” he writes in the MJA with co-author Ruth Townsend.

Australia could also argue for a clause to be inserted in the agreement stipulating “a non-discriminatory regulation for public health that affects foreign investment is not deemed expropriatory and compensable for damages”.

The journal article notes that last year then trade minister Simon Crean said Australia had “serious reservations about the inclusion of investor-state dispute settlement provision in this agreement”.

“We do not want new layers of red tape under the guise of trade liberalisation,” Mr Crean said.

Labor announced in April last year that cigarettes will have to be sold in plain packets from mid-2012.

If the move is successful it will be a world first.

The Government expects the change to make smoking less appealing to young people who may be susceptible to the lure of branding and packaging.

An alliance of big tobacco groups and corner shop trade bodies is barraging ministers with claims that an upcoming ban on the display of cigarettes on store shelves will trigger an upsurge in illicit sales and organised crime, as well as pushing many legitimate small traders out of business. The desperate lobbying comes ahead of a ban on behind-the-counter displays of tobacco that is slated to come into force for supermarkets in October next year and for smaller stores two years later, but which could yet be shelved by the coalition.

The new rules mark the last in a series of anti-smoking regulations pushed through in recent years by the health lobby with the backing of the Labour government. Other measures include a ban on smoking in public places, an advertising ban and the imposition of more aggressive health warnings on packs.

The industry has fought back, however, launching promotions on social networking sites and at music festivals, and exploiting loopholes in the ban that allow publicity for cigarette papers such as Rizlas. Tobacco bosses have described the wave of regulations as an attack on civil liberties, with little impact on the incidence of smoking.

Industry hopes that ministers may be about to unwind, or soften, the latest shop display rules were given a boost recently when public health minister Anne Milton told the Commons last month: “The government, in discussions across Whitehall, is developing options around the display of tobacco in shops that seek to ensure an appropriate balance between public health priorities and burdens on business.”

While in opposition, leading figures in both coalition parties opposed the ban, which passed onto the statute book a year ago as part of the 2009 Health Act. Suspending the ban timetable would require the measures to go before parliament again, some campaigners believe.

Lobby groups point to a surge in smuggled and counterfeit cigarette sales in Ireland – where new rules forced tobacco products under the counter in the summer of last year – as well as a wave of small shop closures as evidence of the damaging impact of such a ban.

“Ultimately, people don’t even know where to buy tobacco any more,” says Imperial Tobacco chief executive Alison Cooper. “The Irish have this problem. That’s the best evidence.”

Imperial, which makes Britain’s two most smoked cigarette brands, Richmond and Lambert & Butler, as well as the leading rolling tobacco, Golden Virginia, has been lobbying the government with peers Japan Tobacco, British American Tobacco and Philip Morris. Parallel to lobbying efforts, all four are pursuing an application for judicial review of rules banning tobacco displays.

“There is no credible evidence to support the stated public health objective that restricting tobacco displays will reduce youth smoking levels,” says Christopher Ogden, chief executive of the Tobacco Manufacturers’ Association.

“We believe, as recent evidence in Ireland proves, that organised crime will exploit the display ban. Concealing tobacco products from view will make it easier for traders of smuggled product to blend it into the legal supply chain… It could encourage some smokers to buy from rogue traders prepared to sell more visible illicit product.”

The lobbyists believe the Department for Business is sympathetic – and is particularly concerned about the impact on small shops – but fear any moves to reverse the scheduled ban will be met with fierce opposition from the Department of Health and the wider medical establishment. Convenience store campaign groups believe No 10 is having to help departments reach a consensus view.

According to the National Federation of Retail Newsagents (NFRN), corner shops, which typically operate on slim margins, can rely on tobacco sales for up to a third of their turnover, with shoppers attracted by cigarettes often choosing to make additional impulse purchases. They fear smokers will gravitate to supermarkets if they are unsure whether a newsagent stock tobacco.

As recently as April, the then Conservative shadow health minister said: “My party, if elected, would bring the government’s proposals back before parliament… At the same time as revisiting the ban itself, we would look again at meaningful alternatives to reduce smoking rates, including a ban on proxy purchasing and stronger measures on tobacco smuggling.”

Industry lobbyist nevertheless remain concerned.

“Despite the government’s pre-election pledge to revoke the display ban, we fear a coalition flip-flop and call upon David Cameron and Nick Clegg to deliver on their promises to the small shopkeepers of Britain whose livelihoods are on the line over a measure that will not work,” the NFRN says. Imperial’s Cooper adds: “We are talking to government… but governments don’t always do things that are entirely sensible.”

Imperial claims Ireland has seen a sharp drop in excise duty receipts from tobacco sales since cigarettes were forced under the counter more than a year ago – implying a rise in smuggled and counterfeit trade.

Last year an estimated 27% of cigarettes smoked in Ireland were not duty-paid, though the figure in part reflects a rise in cross-border trade with Northern Ireland driven by a weaker pound against the euro.

Let’s hear it for the tobacco industry. No, really, give it up. C’mon, put your hands together. Big Tobacco, the cockroach of American capitalism, is working hard to show not only is it not worried about the future, it’s prepared for it. It’s adapting like a chameleon. It’s not about to let a few smoking bans and feel-good Clean Air acts stop it from cashing in. South Dakota, go ahead and pass your little smoking ban next week. By the way, it’s about time, you lemmings.

Smoking just isn’t what it used to be. It used to be the cool thing to do. The best-looking actors, the sexiest actresses smoked on the big screen. You can’t watch a black-and-white movie without seeing half the cast nursing a nic stick. Hollywood only fostered Big Tobacco’s success.

Sure, smoking in the United States has taken some blows, but it’s never been close to needing life support like so many of its victims have. That pesky surgeon general has always put up a decent fight. And today, more states are adopting those smoking bans and more are coming to the conclusion that smoking just isn’t worth it. Of course, we’ve always known that, but we couldn’t stop. The secondhand smoke scare made some people cease and desist, cessation programs have done some good, and a hike in cigarette taxes has really put a dent in the tobacco industry’s plans.

And then there’s ClearWay Minnesota, a program born in 1998 as part of Minnesota’s legal settlement with the tobacco companies. The Ramsey County District Court entrusted more than $200 million of that $6.2 billion settlement to create ClearWay, which has built a national reputation for controlling tobacco.

But out of the ashes of the war between the tobacco companies and those who stand against them, a new, 21st century battle is brewing, and those crafty geniuses who run the tobacco companies are continually coming up with new ways to push their product and keep those who continue to line their pockets to keep lining their pockets.

ClearWay’s Mike Sheldon, who said the group will come out with a comprehensive survey in January detailing the adult smoking rate in Minnesota, said ClearWay is looking at ways it can be most effective before 2023 when it transitions out. “We’re looking at ways we can have the most impact in the time that we have left. Certainly one of the most important pieces is policy work and how we can affect the policies in Minnesota.”

Oct. 1 marked the three-year anniversary of the Freedom to Breathe Act – Minnesota’s statewide comprehensive smoke-free law. Molly Moilanen, also of ClearWay, said that almost 80 percent of Minnesotans are supportive of the Act and she predicts that attitude will continue to trend upward.

“A lot of business that were opposed or on the fence about it are now very supportive and are glad that it happened in terms that they have lower maintenance costs and the kind of customers they have. We’re really proud of that law, but we know that our work’s not done.”

That’s because the tobacco companies continue to evolve and go after youth. Coming to a market near you – maybe you’ve already seen some of this stuff -are grape-flavored cigarettes. Grape! In purple packages! Like chocolate? They have those, too. Yes, and for you orange lovers, they’ve got that covered as well. Then there’s snus, which has already made its way to Minnesota, so you know everyone else is already doing it. But it gets better. How about finely-milled dissolvable tobacco that comes in strips that contain nicotine. Smell? No way. Smoke? Nope. Just a strip o’ nicotine on your tongue.

“Then there’s orbs, which are basically tobacco Tic-Tacs,”?Sheldon said. “Just put it in your mouth and let it dissolve; that’s basically the nicotine delivery system. There’s also the strips, which are just like breath strips. This is the wave of the future for the tobacco industry. Certainly they’re aware that more and more states are going smoke-free. What they’re doing is saying, “When you can’t smoke, check these out. When you’re at work and you can’t smoke use these. Then when you get home, go ahead and pull out your cigarettes.’”

But ClearWay again fought back. The Tobacco Modernization Act of 2010 has expanded the definition of tobacco products to include these types of dissolvable products, so by the time they migrate to Minnesota, they will be regulated. It’s ClearWay’s attempt to stay one step ahead of the serial killer carrying the big knife.

“It really brought our tobacco statutes in line with the 21st century,” Moilanen said. “The tobacco industry reacted to our smoking bans around the country by introducing new smokeless tobacco products, but this bill will help, so when it does come to Minnesota it will be regulated -they will not be able to sell them to minors, they will be put behind counters, not on the shelf next to candy and gum. And they’ll be taxed as tobacco products as well.”

This battle will wage on, it seems, infinitely. In other words, don’t expect the tobacco industry to wave a white, nicotine-stained flag anytime soon.

In April 1994, tobacco industry executives testified under oath on Capitol Hill that nicotine wasn’t addictive – and that cigarettes didn’t kill.
(Tobacco executives, top left, in 1994. Bottom, Goldman Sachs employees, today.)

That hearing was memorable, and a turning point for tobacco companies. It opened the spigot of litigation and legislation. Since then, the tobacco industry has paid out hundreds of billions of dollars in lawsuits and settlements. Now the federal government is regulating cigarettes under a law passed last year.

The Goldman Sachs executives testifying today before the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations could take a lesson from the tobacco industry’s experience. “Goldman Sachs is to Wall Street as Philip Morris is to tobacco,” said one former tobacco industry executive who was at the Congressional hearing sixteen years ago. At that time, Phillip Morris held an estimated 45 percent share of the U.S. cigarette market.

His advice to Goldman Sachs executives: “If these guys come across as arrogant or confrontational, it won’t be good for them.”

Fabrice Tourre said in his testimony today that “to the average person the utility of these products may not be obvious.” But viewers of his testimony may hear a different message – that the average person isn’t smart enough to understand what Wall Street does.

To the former tobacco executive, it doesn’t sound much different than the message some in the tobacco industry sent back in the 1990s. “What people heard from big tobacco was ‘if you’re stupid enough to believe us when we say cigarettes don’t kill, that’s your own problem.’”

Of course, cigarettes aren’t Collateralized Debt Obligations. Lung cancer is easier to understand than a CDO or derivative. It’s too early to know if public outrage, Congressional investigations, lawsuits and regulatory reform will change change the culture and incentives of Wall Street, but the road ahead for investment bankers could be bumpy.

Cbsnews

Victor DeNoble has traveled the land the past 15 years accompanied by a frozen monkey brain, a frozen human brain, a true-life tale of corporate espionage, a stand-up comedian’s timing and a million reasons not to smoke.

But no preaching.

“I’m not here to tell people what to do,” DeNoble told about 200 students at Chavez High School on Tuesday afternoon.

The message, though, was easily discernible. And, coming as it did from a former behavioral scientist for Philip Morris, it was profound.

It’s a message the 60-year-old DeNoble is bringing to Stockton for the first time this week, with additional visits scheduled for today at Plaza Robles and New Vision high schools, and at Venture Academy on Thursday.

Thirty years ago, DeNoble was assigned by Philip Morris to develop a safe substitute for nicotine, a chemical that makes tobacco addictive but also causes the heart to race, sometimes dangerously. His research with countless rats and a drug-addicted capuchin monkey named Sarah led to his discovery of the long-term changes to the brain that smoking causes.

Eventually, DeNoble developed a nicotine-free cigarette, but Philip Morris wasn’t interested because it feared the new product would kill its other brands. Executives with the company also sought to silence DeNoble from publicizing his research about tobacco’s brain-changing properties, but eventually he tipped off the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

DeNoble testified before Congress in 1994, revealing the lies of the tobacco industry. Cigarette companies have paid out more than $700 billion in legal damages.

Ever since, DeNoble has been speaking to students for Kaiser Permanente’s “Don’t Buy the Lie” program. Students attending the program this week have the opportunity to win $1,000 in an anti-smoking billboard design competition. The winners’ creations will appear on billboards in the Stockton area.

DeNoble arrives at his school visits bearing organs – the monkey Sarah’s brain and the brain of a 63-year-old man who was dying of cancer in the early 1980s.

“After you’re dead, can I have your brain?” DeNoble recalled asking the man.

The Chavez students roared.

The man asked DeNoble, “What are you going to do with my brain?”

DeNoble replied, “Well, I’m going to take it out of your head, I’m going to cut it in half, I want to look in the middle, I want to see if your brains cells are changed by the nicotine.”

The man soon died and DeNoble got his brain as well as invaluable research material. DeNoble showed the brain to the Chavez students, holding it in hands covered by blue surgical gloves and jogging around the school’s auditorium as some students stood and craned their necks and others squealed in low-grade horror.

“He was funny and entertaining, funny but still informative,” said Alicia Moore, 18, a senior in Chavez’s health sciences academy who wants to become a nurse.

Moore said she never knew before DeNoble’s visit that smoking causes chemical changes in the brain. She admitted that once when she was younger, she took a few puffs.

“I have tried a cigarette,” she said. “When I was in elementary school, I stole my mom’s one time when she wasn’t looking. It wasn’t a good experience. I didn’t like it.”

By Roger Phillips, Recordnet