Nicotine and Tar in Cigarettes: What the Numbers Meant and Why They Disappeared

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For forty years, from 1967 to 2008, every cigarette advertised in the United States carried two numbers: milligrams of tar and milligrams of nicotine, measured by a Federal Trade Commission smoking machine. The numbers are gone from ads and packs, and the “low tar” and “light” labels built on them are banned. This page explains what tar is, how the numbers were produced, what they ranged over, why the government withdrew them, and where things stand now, including the one cigarette that is legally allowed to say it has less nicotine.

Last verified September 11, 2026. Sources at the end.

What tar is

Tar is not an ingredient. It is the name for the particulate matter in cigarette smoke: everything caught on a filter pad when smoke is drawn through it, minus the water and the nicotine. It is a brown, sticky residue of several thousand compounds, including the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and nitrosamines that account for most of smoking’s cancer risk. The amount produced depends on how much tobacco burns and how the smoke is diluted on its way to the mouth, which is why filter ventilation, paper porosity and the density of the tobacco rod all change the number.

How the numbers were made

The FTC method, adopted in 1967, was a machine protocol: one 35-milliliter puff lasting two seconds, once every 60 seconds, down to a fixed butt length, with the smoke collected and weighed. Every brand was tested the same way and the FTC published the results in annual reports through the 1990s. Manufacturers printed the figures in advertising and used them to define product tiers. By industry convention, a “full flavor” cigarette yielded roughly 15 mg of tar or more, a “light” 6 to 15 mg, and an “ultra light” 6 mg or less; nicotine yields ran from about 0.1 mg to 1.5 mg per cigarette. Average machine-measured tar fell from about 38 mg per cigarette in the mid-1950s to about 12 mg by the 1990s, mostly through filters and ventilation rather than any change in the tobacco.

Why they were withdrawn

The machine does not smoke the way people smoke, and the difference is not random. A cigarette engineered to yield less to the machine, mainly by adding ventilation holes around the filter, yields about the same to a person, because smokers cover the holes with their lips and fingers, take larger and more frequent puffs, inhale more deeply, and smoke more of the cigarette. The National Cancer Institute’s Monograph 13, published in 2001, reviewed the evidence and concluded that the machine yields did not predict what smokers took in and that lower-yield cigarettes had produced no reduction in disease. In 2008 the FTC formally rescinded its 1966 guidance that had allowed yield claims, saying the numbers were misleading. In 2009 the Tobacco Control Act (section 911) made any product labeled “light,” “mild,” “low” or similar a modified-risk product requiring FDA authorization, effective June 22, 2010, and since no cigarette has that authorization, the descriptors disappeared and brands renamed their packs by color. The European Union went a step further in 2014 and banned printing yields on packs entirely, on the grounds that the numbers implied a difference in risk that does not exist.

What the numbers would look like today

Manufacturers still measure yields and report them to the FDA, and the machine methods (the ISO method internationally and the more intense “Canadian Intense” protocol) are still used in research. They are not published brand by brand in the US, and the reason this page does not rank brands is the same reason the FTC stopped: a ranking would be read as a safety ladder, and the ladder is not real. What the research does support is a description of the range. Nicotine content in the tobacco of the top-selling US brands averaged 17.2 mg per gram in the FDA’s 2017 analysis; a smoker absorbs 1 to 2 mg per cigarette regardless of brand; and tar delivered to a person is a function of how the cigarette is smoked, not of the number that used to be printed on it.

The exception: very low nicotine cigarettes

One product can legally say it contains less nicotine. In December 2021 the FDA issued a modified-risk order to 22nd Century Group for its VLN King and VLN Menthol King cigarettes, which are made from tobacco bred to contain about 95% less nicotine than a conventional cigarette (roughly 0.5 mg of nicotine per gram of tobacco). The order allows the company to state “95% less nicotine” and “helps reduce your nicotine consumption,” and requires it to state that the product does not reduce the health risks of smoking. It is the only such authorization, and it was granted because the product was shown to reduce nicotine intake, not exposure to tar or anything else in smoke. Separately, the FDA proposed in January 2025 to cap nicotine in all cigarettes at 0.70 mg per gram; that rule had not been finalized as of this page’s date.

Related: Which Cigarettes Have the Most Nicotine? and Unfiltered Cigarettes.

Sources

• National Cancer Institute, “Light” Cigarettes and Cancer Risk, summarizing NCI Monograph 13 (2001)
• 21 U.S.C. 387k, Modified risk tobacco products
• FDA, proposed nicotine yield standard, January 16, 2025
• NIDA, How does tobacco deliver its effects?
• FDA, Modified Risk Tobacco Products (VLN orders, December 2021)