Victor DeNoble, a former researcher for Philip Morris and a key witness in the federal overnments case against the tobacco industry, shared his findings Monday night. DeNoble said he hoped his story would help students realize the importance of leadership and policy making. Philip Morris, a tobacco company in Va., first approached DeNoble in 1979 when he was doing postdoctorate work at the University of Minnesota. According to DeNoble, the company had discovered that nicotine was killing 138,000 of their customers per year. He explained that Phillip Morris began a secret project in 1970 to remove nicotine from igarettes. By the time the company approached DeNoble in 1979, its researchers had accomplished that goal. But, DeNoble said, Philip Morris was afraid sales would drop if they removed nicotine from their cigarettes. DeNobles job was to find a synthetic drug that would possess the same addictive qualities of nicotine without the carcinogenic side effects. DeNobles laboratory was on the third floor of Philip Morris. The third floor was where you stepped off the elevator and all the windows were painted black, all the doors had special passes, all the rats that came in for our experiments came in at four oclock in the morning, and not more than 50 people in the whole world, 25 people in that building knew that [we] had a laboratory inside, he said. In 1981, DeNoble found a molecule that had no cardiovascular omplications. The company could make these nicotinefree cigarettes for about an extra five cents per pack. This change, however, would cost Philip Morris too much in the loss of sales fo

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