On December 15, 1997, U.S. cigarette manufacturers provided the Commonwealth of Massachusetts with the first test results required under the Commonwealth's new cigarette testing law. These data included information on cigarette brand families sold in the United States which had more than a 5% national market share during the previous year. Testing conducted to comply with Massachusetts regulations included evaluations of smoke nicotine, tobacco nicotine, "smoke pH" and filter ventilation. Although the Massachusetts "methods" have not been scientifically validated, results for cigarettes tested in 1997 indicate the following: (1) The smoke nicotine values obtained with the Massachusetts testing guidelines are roughly twice the values obtained under standard FTC smoking conditions. While the smoke nicotine yields do increase with the Massachusetts testing condition, the relative ranking of cigarette brand styles produced under standard FTC machine smoking conditions is generally maintained by the Massachusetts tests. (2) The effect of filter ventilation on smoke nicotine yield was not eliminated by blocking half of the ventilation holes with tape. Cigarettes manufactured with the highest degrees of filter ventilation yielded smaller amounts of nicotine than cigarettes manufactured with lesser amounts of filter ventilation when cigarettes were smoked either as manufactured or with the filter vents half-blocked as specified by the Massachusetts testing guidelines. (3) Based on tests conducted, the amount of nicotine in the cigarette itself provided no consistent indication of how much nicotine the cigarette would yield to smoke when cigarettes were tested with either the standard FTC smoking condition or the smoking conditions specified in the Massachusetts guidelines. (4) There were not substantial differences observed in "smoke pH" levels among the cigarette brand styles that were tested by any single method by any one company. As such, no correlation between "smoke pH" and smoke nicotine yields was observed for the brand styles tested.