New Smoking Material was a £7 million product development project run by Imperial Tobacco and Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) mainly in the 1970s intended to reduce the harmful content of cigarette smoke.^[1][2][3] Research and commercialisation was done under a joint company New Smoking Materials Ltd (incorporated 1957, dissolved 2012).^[4] The term, or its abbreviations N.S.M. or NSM, were also used for products used or intended to be used as a partial replacement for tobacco in cigarettes as a result of this or research by other companies.

The material was modified cellulose (which is a major constituent of tobacco).^[2] Three companies produced rival products: in the USA Celanese, brand name Cytrel, in the UK ICI, brand name NSM, and Courtaulds brand name Tabrelle, but only Cytrel and NSM went to market,^[5] in July 1977.^[6] Four companies produced cigarettes mainly containing 25% new smoking material: Gallaher (which had one product with 40%), Rothmans International, W.D. & H.O. Wills, and John Player & Sons.^[5]

The two products Cytrel and NSM were judged less harmful than tobacco and approved by a special government committee, the Independent Scientific Committee on Smoking and Health,^[7] which was formed in 1973 and as its first action produced guidelines for the testing of tobacco substitutes and additives.^[8] However, there was a public outcry when it was revealed that the research involved animal experiments in which beagles were made to inhale tobacco smoke, or the substitute tobacco smoke, or a mixture of the two, at the equivalent of 30 cigarettes per day for several years.^[3][9][10]

Sales of the new cigarettes peaked at about 4% of UK sales shortly after launch, but dropped to 0.6% six months later, far below the expectations of Imperial, which had constructed a £15 million factory to produce 15% of the UK market.^[1]

Imperial finally closed the factory making NSM in 1981.^[11]