NTA mulls purchase of machine to check tar content of cigarets

The National Tobacco Administration is planning to acquire a sophisticated smoking machine from abroad to check the volume of tar and other carcinogenic substances in locally produced cigarettes.

Anti-smoking advocates have raised concerns on the hazards of smoking brought about by dangerous substances in cigarettes.

NTA, Administrator Carlitos Encarnacion said the operationalization of the machine and its four component sub-machines will be beneficial to cigarette manufacturers for it will help unmask and drive out fake and untaxed cigarettes in the country.

Encarnacion told newsmen yesterday that the five-part equipment consists of testing machines complementary to each other in detecting the various hazardous ingredients of cigarettes and would find out if these are within tolerable levels.

Health advocates have been claiming that some unscrupulous cigaret makers, at times, maximize their mixtures of addictive substances and harmful ingredients resulting in their patrons getting hooked all the more to smoking.

The main equipment, Encarnacion said, mimics human smoking and by using a special filtration system, it isolates, identifies and quantifies tar and other smoke components. With the use of the other equipment, carbon monoxide and other carcinogenic substances can be determined.

Another equipment measures the amount of poisonous DDT and other pesticide residues in cigarets which are generated from tobacco plants. It is called gas chromatograph which features an electron capture detector.

The acceptable DDT residue levels is less than one part per billion as is the case in Europe, NTA officials said.

Other components of the smoking machine are an assembly of test modules and automatic circumference gauge, a data station, and an ultrasonic cleaner.

NTA officials noted that other countries have installed their smoking laboratories featuring the smoking machine equipment.

"I don’t see any reason why we can’t have one here," Encarnacion said even as he disclosed that the agency has identified the source of funds to procure the equipment.

It was learned that the whole equipment would cost about P20 million.