Reynolds Asked to Delay No-Smoke Cigarette Marketing
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TUCSON — Arizona’s Board of Pharmacy today asked R. J. Reynolds Co. to voluntarily withdraw its “smokeless cigarette” from test-marketing in Phoenix and Tucson, pending a determination of whether it is a drug.
The agency acted after the American Medical Assn. petitioned the board and Missouri’s Health Department, arguing that the Premier cigarette is a “new, hazardous” drug that should be banned by the Food and Drug Administration.
R. J. Reynolds attorney Jack La Sota had asked the board to delay any action on Premier cigarettes, which are also being test-marketed in St. Louis, until the FDA makes its own determination of the tobacco product’s classification.
The Premier is low in smoke and ash because the tobacco is warmed, not burned. Like conventional cigarettes, the Premier also contains nicotine.
For that reason, the medical association has called it a “drug-delivery system” that falls under the jurisdiction of the FDA.
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