Safer cigarettes? That's just blowing smoke

Suggestions of a "safer" cigarette create a new challenge for physicians treating their smoking patients.

Editorial. Nov. 26, 2001.

The magazine ad announcing the launch of Omni cigarettes isn't quite on the level of "Less Cancer, Tastes Great" but it comes pretty close.

Tucked into People magazine, a fixture in most doctors' waiting rooms, a double-page ad touts Omni as "The first reduced carcinogen cigarette" -- itself an attempt at accentuating the positive that's worthy of a double take -- "that tastes, smokes and burns just like any other premium cigarette."

To take the Omni ad at its word, this new cigarette is targeted at the nearly 50 million Americans who already smoke. "Now," Omni suggests, "there's actually a reason to change brands." If even a small fraction of them do, Omni maker Vector Group Ltd. stands to harvest a fortune.

Such is the first big splash in the next wave for the tobacco industry, the safer cigarette -- although none of the companies involved would ever dare call them that. Instead, Omni's maker says that its product is "a major step in the right direction." (Nearly identical language from Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. -- one of two other companies now test-marketing a similar product -- suggests just how challenging it has become for tobacco makers to say anything good about their products. B&W says its Advance Lights are an "important step in the right direction.") [...]

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