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Excerpts from:  Cigaletts: A `Safer' Nicotine?

                By WILLIAM HATHAWAY, The Hartford Courant [05/21/01]
 
                What do you call pressed tobacco that is coated with mint
                and eucalyptus flavoring and packs the same nicotine punch
                as a cigarette?

                Relief for harried smokers suffering from nicotine fits on
                flights and in restaurants, say officials of the tobacco
                company that wants to test market the product this summer.

                "It is indeed a candy, designed to lure children into beginning
                a lifetime of addiction,'' said Richard Blumenthal,
                Connecticut's attorney general.

                Welcome to a new era of modified tobacco products that
                have reduced levels of some toxins and are marketed not to
                appeal to a Joe Camel sense of cool but as a socially
                acceptable way to satiate an addict's cravings.

                The product - call it hard tobacco or a pellet, says Machir -
                is the size of a Tic Tac and will be marketed, with tobacco
                giant Brown & Williamson, in packs of 20 for $3 under the
                name Ariva.

                Machir acknowledges the product is harmful, should be
                regulated and that prospective customers - tobacco addicts -
                would be better off not using it at all.

                Critics say products like Ariva simply candy-coat a
                dangerous killer as part of an insidious ploy by companies
                such as Brown & Williamson to prevent smokers from
                kicking their bad habit and hook a new generation of nicotine
                addicts.

                "It's a very dangerous gimmick from a company that has
                proved itself completely devious and cunning in targeting
                children and deceiving the public,'' Blumenthal said.

               Bondurant recently presided over a task force for the Institute
                of Medicine at the National Academy of Sciences to assess
                whether offering safer tobacco products to smokers was
                scientifically justified. [FOR MORE INFORMATION,
                CLICK ON: Risk Reduction by Nicotine Replacement

                As a matter of public health policy, the committee
                concentrated on a single, critical question, Bondurant said.
                Will the number of people who would be helped by having a
                safer alternative to cigarettes exceed the number of people
                harmed by having access to a new potentially dangerous
                and addictive product?

                The Institute of Medicine answered with a cautious yes - but
                only if such products are strictly regulated and tested.

               Blumenthal said recent announcements by tobacco
                companies such as Star and conglomerate Philip Morris are
                not noble gestures - but simply a way to seek protection
                against lawsuits.

                "They only want regulations that are toothless,'' Blumenthal
                said.

                Blumenthal said his office is investigating whether Star
                Scientific and Brown & Williamson may be violating tobacco
                settlement agreements by introducing Ariva.

                Tobacco products are not regulated, although there is a
                chance that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration could
                consider Ariva to be a food, and therefore subject to
                regulation, Blumenthal said.