BrLL/LATNG CIGARETTE
On Thursday, 7th September, Mr. J. D. Jones,
Director,
Project Development, Ontario Pesearch Foundation,
called
unexpectedly and discussed the recent developments
in the
Bell/Laing cigarette. He is representing
Bell/laing.
This was first brought to our attention in 196S.
It is a
cigarette involving a redistribution of the
tobacco to the outside
compared with normal (i.e. a cigarette with a hole
down the
middle). n-Is is claimed to give lass irritation
and now to
produce less TPM per cigarette. Since this was
very much In
line with the way in which wa were working oLT
selves, we told
him in 1965 that we were interested but did not
wish to discuss
this development unless or until patents were
obtained.
Subsequently, this development achieved some
publicity in
Canada.
The present position is that Bell and Laing expect
to
obtain a British patent and a Canadian patent and
that the U.S.A.
patent should Issue within the ne-,t week or two.
Two other
companies are Interested; one was unidentified and
is interestad
only in the gimick value of the devalopment. The
other company
is Rothmans, who are said to be seriously
Interested. A certain
amount of work Is being done on alcchol ex-Lracts
of the smoke and
the comparison has been maci,,:-. bctwe3n the
chemistry of thaza
extracts from pipe tobacco, cigar tobacco,
ordinary Rothmans
cigarettes and Bell/Laing modified Rothmans
cigarettes.
Bell and Laing have little experience with
cigarettes and
it may well be the results which appear to be
favourable are not
so much due to having a hole down the middle of
the cigarattes as
to the lowering the rate of combustion of tobacco
due to the firmer
packing achieved. So far only hand-made cigarettes
have been
used, although it was mentioned that BeU has paid
a visit to
Rothmans laboratories and has spent some time
there.
I said that we would probably consider a proposal
to look
further Into this project providing we were
assured that other C=>
C=)
manufacturers were not approached during the
period of our
investigation end Mr. Jones promised to discuss
with the Ln
/2. NJ
BATCO document for Province of British Columbia 5
November 1999


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inventors this suggestion a.-W to come back with
some proposition
which we could then consider. Mr. Jones suggested
the possibility
of an option at least to give us'a lead time in
production should
we decide to pursue it further. I said that In
view of the expense
of looking into a project of this nature we would
not be prepared
to consider anything other than a purely nominal
payment for
such an option. I also explained that we already
held patents for
what I thought was the best way of making the
BeU/Laing cigarette
on a production scale.
My cwn view of this Is that there may be some
advantage
to be obtained in this general area but that it
would necssc-arily
require very careful Investigation. On the other
hand, It is very
much In line with our own thoughts and intentions
In studying
the anular construction of cigarettes and It would
be wise to keep
the door open if Bell and Laing are getting
patents even if these
are only of nuisance value.
Mr. Jones also left with me a paper by Bell and
Laing on
this subject. Bell Is Senior Research Engineer at
the rnt--rnatioaal
Nickel Company of Canada and Laing is a
technologist in the
University of Toronto in the Department of Metals
and Material
Science. I have no doubt that this is intended to
be a se-ious
contVibution to the subject but I am doubtful
whether there is any
real value in it.
SJG/SGM
12.9.67.
BATCO document for Province of BritiSh Columbia 5
November 1999