Benchmark Website

Site live since 30/6/2003

The UK Benchmark Study

The Final Report of the UK Smoke Constituents Testing Study (The 'UK Benchmark' Study).

This study was requested by the UK Department of Health during the Summer of 2001 as a single point in time sample of production cigarettes available in the UK. The Department of Health nominated an independent contract laboratory, LGC Limited (now Arista Laboratories, Europe), to perform the study and requested that TMA member companies fund the entire study. As a goodwill gesture the UK-based Member Companies of the TMA – Imperial Tobacco Limited, Gallaher Limited and British American Tobacco PLC – agreed to fund this study and committed to making the results available to members of the public. The content of this Website fulfils this commitment.

The link below will take you to the covering letter that accompanied the Final Report when submitted to the Department of Health in June 2003 and then to the Final Report itself. Subsequent links connect to the individual reports for each group of smoke constituents and to some additional summary and explanatory information.

> Letter to the Department of Health