The Act of Smoking

Summary

Cigarette smoking is a complex activity which can be studied both in terms of detailed measurements of puffing and inhalation as well as in terms of the delivery and uptake by the smoker of a range of smoke components. Measurement of human smoking profiles have demonstrated that different products may be smoked differently and in particular that ‘low tar’ cigarettes are smoked more intensively than ‘middle tar’ cigarettes thus offsetting the reductions in tar delivery expected from standard machine smoking values. Differences in smoking patterns have been attributed to the smokers needs but evidence is presented which indicates that individual smokers smoke to a constant amount of work. This suggests that the product may have an important role with its pressure drop showing an inverse relationship to puff volume during smoking. Whatever the interaction between the smoker and the product in determining smoking behaviour however, the resulting tar intake of ’low tar’ smokers remains significantly lower than that of ‘middle tar’ smokers.