in accordance with the present invention examples of useful coating or impregnating materials include cellulose ethers such as methyl cellulose and carboxymethyl cellulose starch or chemically modified starches such as hydroxyethylated or acetylated starch guar gum sodium alginate or other vegetable gums dextrin and proteins such as gelatin or refined vegetable proteins the application can be made on the paper machine for example at the size press or it can be applied to the formed paper by separate operation such as coating or saturation techniques where the composition containing both the sealing material and the alkali metal additive is unstable separate treatment steps may be used in either order to illustrate the double wrapped embodiment of the invention cigarettes were made using an inner wrapper with a bmi of 1 0 cm 1 and no alkali metal salt and an outer wrapper a commercially available cigarette paper treated as to contain 60 mg of anhydrous potassium citrate per gram of bone dry base paper the inner wrapper was manufactured in the same manner as the paper in example 1 the physical properties of the inner wrapper were tappi opacity 68 tensile strength of 4 000 g 29 mm coresta permeability of 1 cm min basis weight of 21 g m 2 and bmi of 1 cm 1 the outer wrapper was a commercial cigarette paper containing 30 calcium carbonate trade name albacar from pfizer inc further treated to contain 60 mg of anhydrous potassium citrate per gram of bone dry paper the physical properties of the outer wrapper were opacity.