1963 ěÖ Moreover, nicotine is addictive. We are, then, in the business of selling nicotine, an addictive drug effective in the relief of stress mechanisms.î Brown & Williamson general counsel Addison Yeaman in a memo dated July 17, 1963. (Yeaman and other executives decided to withhold their companyís findings on the addictiveness of nicotine from Surgeon General Luther Terry, who was then preparing the landmark 1964 Surgeon Generalís report.)