Edited by Douglas Harbrecht

WILL A LETTUCE BUTT HELP SMOKERS QUIT TOBACCO?

Get ready for the lettuce cigarette. That's right, lettuce. As in romaine and iceberg, the two varieties now filling Safer Smokes Corp.'s Bravo, an otherwise normal-looking cigarette that's being introduced Sept. 18 by pharmacist and inventor Puzant Torigian.

The 75-year-old Torigian admits that a lettuce smoke sounds bizarre, but in an interview with Business Week Online, the New Jersey native says he doesn't intend for the nicotine-free Bravo to replace traditional tobacco brands. Rather, he's marketing the new product to smokers who want to quit, but who can't abandon the habit's tactile rituals -- holding a lighter or tapping a fresh pack of cigarettes, for example. "You'll smoke these a few times and keep the ritual, but you'll be cutting out the addictive nicotine," he explains. A package of 20 will retail for about $3.50, which is more than a dollar higher than traditional cigarettes.

Bravo will have a limited distribution at first, confined mainly to direct-mail orders and areas in and around Atlanta and South Florida. Initial sales projections are modest -- the company's 10,000-square-foot Atlanta processing plant is making just 25,000 packs a month -- though production can be expanded up to 600,000 packs, Torigian says. Private investors are footing the company's $1.5 million in startup costs.

Bravos are made by first transforming lettuce (some 20 million pounds this year) into long, thin sheets. The sheets are then treated with enzymes, shredded, and seasoned with a secret formula consisting of "herbs found in any kitchen" according to Torigian. When smoked, the cigarette gives off a light aroma but strong aftertaste. The experience is somewhat similar to a real smoke, but only somewhat. "When you smoke a cigarette, you expect a certain sensation -- these don't have that sensation," observes Ruth Nielsen, a Manhattan medical-office administrator who recently tried, and liked, Bravo because it helped her quit for three months.

Though Bravo is promoted as being a "safer" alternative, it has not yet received Food & Drug Administration testing or approval. That worries Diane Maple of the American Lung Assn., who says that while she isn't familiar with the product, she is still concerned about verifying just what is in it. She wants to know, for example, "what are the chemicals used to treat it? And how do they interact with each other when they are burned?"

In fact, it's unclear just how a product like Bravo might be officially regulated or tested. Since it's not made from tobacco, would it be available to smokers under the age of 18? Would its advertising be placed under any restraints issued as part of a nationwide tobacco settlement? Torigian says he's committed to selling Bravo only to people who want to quit smoking, and his ad campaign -- which has so far consisted of an ad in an Atlanta magazine -- is aimed at adults.

The nation's growing intolerance for tobacco may make Bravo's debut difficult, especially since public-health advocates recently attacked Winston's "Zero Percent Additives" campaign. But, as Torigian notes, those same conditions may help people take his tobacco alternative seriously. Given lawmakers' crusade to curb America's daily smoking habits, and President Clinton's support for a steep tobacco tax, humble Bravo just might give lettuce a life beyond the produce aisle.

By Dennis Berman in New York