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.
From:
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/september/nf7091...

College Park plant rolls out a lettuce cigarette
Atlanta Business Chronicle - November 21, 1997by Dan SadowskyContributing Writer
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To cigarette smokers wanting to kick the habit, Puzant Torigian offers unusual advice: Smoke lettuce.

The New Jersey pharmacist and chemist is marketing a cigarette composed mostly of iceberg lettuce and spiced with herbal extracts. Manufactured in College Park, the cigarette, called Bravo, adds to the smoking-cessation market an offbeat product that Torigian is convinced will find its niche.
From:
http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/stories/1997/11/24/focus4...