Complete Recovery

To the men who know tobacco best, there was plenty of evidence last week that the industry had completely recovered from the cancer scare that toppled sales in 1953-54. Philip Morris reported that first-quarter sales hit $80 million, up 11 % from the same period last year. R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. (Camel, Winston, Salem) said that first-quarter earnings this year will be better than the $13,565,000 made in the same period in 1956. The Department of Agriculture gaye solid support to this optimism: it estimated that Americans are smoking 9% more than a year ago, and predicted that 1957 cigarette sales will top last year's 392 billion (171 packs for every American aged 15 or over), probably exceed the record 394 billion sold in 1952.

When reports linking cigarette smoking to cancer first came out. at least 1,500,000 of the 38 million U.S. smokers forsook the habit, said the Agriculture Department. Since then, most of those who quit "probably have resumed, mainly using filter-tip cigarettes." Commented a tobaccoman: "The cancer scare is good for filters."*

Up Filters. As smokers switched, the phenomenal growth of filters sparked the industry's comeback. While sales of regular cigarettes have continued to drop since 1952, filters have risen from 1% of the market in 1952 to 30% last year, are heading for 40% in 1957. More than a dozen new filter brands have been put on the market in the past five years, and almost every one has moved up fast in the sales race. Reynolds' Winston, fifth-ranked in 1955, last year took over fourth place from Chesterfield. (Regular and king sizes are classified separately.) Liggett & Myers' L&M climbed from ninth to seventh, and filtered Marlboro, which was launched in 1955, moved to eighth.

The filter boom is doubly gratifying to manufacturers. Filter cigarettes sell for 2-c- to 10-c- a pack more than regulars, but cost less to produce. Chief reason: they use a low-grade, high-nicotine, heavy-bodied tobacco to get the taste through to the smoker. This darker, heavier leaf wholesales for only 42-c- a Ib. (up from 25-c- before the big switch to filters), but far less than the 62-c- a Ib. for the lighter tobacco that goes into regulars. Because of the tobacco difference, the filtered smoke usually carries more nicotine than the average regular, and just about the same amount of tar. Tobacco geneticists recently developed an exceptionally light, low-nicotine leaf that would have once been hailed as the tobaccoman's dream. But makers say it lacks the taste to sell, and so it is piling up in Government warehouses.

Manufacturers are also trimming tobacco bills by salvaging the stems and scraps they once threw away, pulverizing them into homogenized tobacco to mix with regular leaf (TIME, June 18). As a result, makers bought 35 million lbs. less tobacco last year than in 1955, and tobaccoland farmers are howling. In North Carolina, where two-thirds of U.S. cigarette tobacco is grown, the state senate recently urged Congress to order that cigarette ingredients be stated on every package. Complained State Senator Henry G. Shelton: "What is happening to the cigarette is a shame. It is scrap tobacco at one end, cellulose at the other and tissue paper all around."

Up Ads. What they save on the tobacco bill cigarette companies are pouring into the hottest race in history to lure buyers from their usual brands and to recruit new smokers. To do this they are not only bringing out new brands (nearly one-third of the market is held by brands that are less than five years old) but also new tastes (youngsters find it easier to learn on mentholated cigarettes) and new packaging. Each major company is hedging its bets by marketing at least three of the four major cigarette types--regulars, filters, kings and mentholated.

There is only one drawback: to promote the new brands is an expensive game. Fighting hard to push its late-starting Hit Parade in the filter race, American Tobacco Co. alone spent about $28 million on advertising last year.

* For news on the possible extraction of the cancer agent in cigarettes, see MEDICINE.

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