What were the tar yield ratings used by the tobacco industry for light cigarettes?
Although no Federal agency formally defined the range of tar yield for light or ultralight cigarettes, the tobacco industry used the ranges shown in the table below (5, 7).Industry Terms on PackagesMachine-measured Tar Yield (in milligrams)Ultralight or Ultralow tarUsually 7 or lessLight or Low tarUsually 8–14Full flavor or RegularUsually 15 or more These ratings were not an accurate indicator of how much tar a smoker might have been exposed to, because people do not smoke cigarettes the same way the machines do and no two people smoke the same way. Ultralight and light cigarettes are no safer than full-flavor cigarettes. There is no such thing as a safe cigarette (1). • Are machine-measured tar yields misleading? Yes. The ratings cannot be used to predict how much tar a smoker will actually get because the way the machine smokes a cigarette is not the way a person smokes a cigarette. A rating of 7 milligrams does not mean that you will get only 7 milligrams of tar. You can get just as
