NCI Monograph 13, "Risks Associated with Smoking Cigarettes with Low Machine-Measured Yields of Tar and Nicotine," concludes that smoking of ultra-low 'tar' cigarettes does not offer the consumer any benefit in terms of reduced intake of smoke components because "Smokers regulate their intake of nicotine to obtain the amount of nicotine they need to sustain their addiction." The monograph further concludes that smokers accomplish this through "more intensive smoking of lower-yield cigarettes," resulting in "complete compensation for nicotine delivery." In addition, the FTC method is (again) criticized for not doing something it was never intended to do; reflect human smoke yields. The authors of the NCI monograph apparently reached these conclusions by focusing on selective studies while ignoring other important research in the area (e.g., Scherer, Psychopharm., 1999, 145:1-20; Pritchard and Robinson, Psychopharm. 1996, 124:282-284). Previous work from our laboratory (Robinson et al., CORESTA 1998, 2000) focused on the key distinction between smoke yield and smoke intake, the wide range of yields generated under human smoking conditions, the fact that blood nicotine concentrations do not play a key role in puffing patterns of human smokers, and the pitfalls of attempting to predict human smoke yields or intake via a machine smoking method. Following a brief review of these points, data from 3 new studies will be presented, including both single-cigarette and multiple-cigarette studies of usual brand and 'test' cigarettes. The data demonstrate that in the laboratory, even with "more intensive smoking of lower-yield cigarettes," on average, smokers generally ingest less nicotine from lower-FTC yield cigarettes (especially ultra-low 'tar') compared to higher FTC yield cigarettes. Since 'tar'-to-nicotine ratios do not change dramatically under human smoking conditions (relative to FTC), smoking of lower-yield cigarettes must also result in reduced exposure to 'tar'.