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This study assessed the role of Maurice Seevers in delaying the United States Surgeon General Reports’ judgment that nicotine use is a drug addiction and examined the use of addiction, as applied to nicotine (smoking), from the 1930s to 2013.

In this narrative review, Truth Tobacco Industry Documents were searched using names of those involved in the 1964 Surgeon General Report; key staff of the American Tobacco Company; and the terms addiction, addictive, dependence, habituation, and habit. Use of “addiction” to smoking was also examined in selected works from 1938 to 2013.

Seevers had consulted for the cigarette industry and had been a long-standing advocate for judging nicotine use a drug habituation. He was primarily responsible for cigarettes being judged not addictive in 1964, over objections of other committee members. According to selection rules, he should …