London - Anti-smoking campaigners yesterday welcomed reports of the discovery of files belonging to one of the world's biggest tobacco companies in which it admits that nicotine is addictive. It is alleged the 19-year-old papers belong to British American Tobacco and are being used by lawyers in the USA as evidence in an action being taken by healthcare providers against the company to recover the cost of treating smokers.
The document states that the company is looking for "a socially acceptable addictive product" whose essential ingredient would be nicotine or a substitute for it.