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- BUSINESS, Page 53Business NotesTOBACCOLess Smoke, More Fire
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- The American Medical Association calls it a "drug delivery
- device." The R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. touts it as a "cleaner
- smoke." The product in dispute is Premier, RJR's so-called
- smokeless cigarette, which the A.M.A. contends should be
- federally regulated. The feud has been fanned by a recent issue
- of the Journal of the A.M.A., which portrays Premier as a
- product that fosters nicotine addiction.
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- The most sensational charge in J.A.M.A. is contained in a
- letter from researchers who claim that Premier, a cigarette-size
- cylinder that heats tobacco rather than burns it, can be used
- to smoke crack, the cocaine derivative. That one has lit a fuse
- at RJR. Last week research head G. Robert Di Marco attacked the
- accusations in J.A.M.A. as "distortions to further the political
- goals of its parent organization."
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