TOBACCO FIRM SEARCHES FOR A SAFER CIGARETTE

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Tobacco companies have tried cabbage, cloves and all
sorts of different things to make a safer cigarette that people might
actually want to smoke.

Now, one company is attempting to remove a potentially carcinogenic
compound from tobacco and still leave the cigarette palatable.

Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. is experimenting with a curing
process developed by a small Richmond, Va. firm to remove some of the
nitrosamines from tobacco. Nitrosamines, which are related to
nicotine, cause cancer in laboratory animals. They are among dozens of
carcinogens in cigarettes.

"The problem is you have to do it in a way that makes the tobacco
still acceptable to consumers," said Brown & Williamson spokesman Mark
Smith. "If nobody smokes them, then you haven't come up with a product
that's less hazardous."

The taste issue is a stumbling block, said Harold Burton, a University
of Kentucky chemist who has been assisting Star Scientific, the
Richmond company that has patented the process that reduces
nitrosamines.

Burton, a longtime tobacco researcher, said the change may require a
change in the "definition of quality" for tobacco.

B&W is the third-largest cigarette company in the United States. Its
brands include Kool, Lucky Strike and Viceroy. Smith said it is not
the company's first attempt to create a safer cigarette.

"It's something we've been trying to do for 40 years," Smith
said.

The company bought 100,000 pounds of flue-cured tobacco last year that
was cured with the new process. It hopes to buy 1.2 million pounds
this year.

Paul L. Perito, a spokesman for Star Scientific, which began as a
small manufacturer of discount cigarettes, said it will use the
improved tobacco in its products.

Perito said the process also will be licensed to other cigarette
manufacturers.

Burton said flue-cured tobacco is easier to manipulate during curing
because it is done mechanically. Burley tobacco, which is generally
considered of higher quality, is cured by simply hanging it in barns
for weeks on end.

Tobacco farmers, already wracked by upheavals in their sales markets
by tobacco company settlements of health claims, would end up having
to pay more to use the Star Scientific curing process, Burton said.
But they could also expect a premium price.

"The economics will have to be sorted out," Burton
said.

Dr. Jim Roach, a Midway, Ky., physician and antismoking activist, said
the effort to improve cigarettes is laudable, but suspicious.

"There are at least 34 cancer-causing agents in cigarettes," Roach
said. "Removing one will help and I'm glad they're doing it.

"The ulterior motive (of the manufacturer) is to say cigarettes are
safer and you don't have to stop. That's the message that we've got to
be careful does not get transmitted," Roach said.

Roy Burry, a tobacco industry analyst with Brown Brothers Harriman,
said cigarette manufacturers can use any edge they can get. A company
that succeeded in removing nitrosamines without repelling consumers
would likely get some boost.

"It seems to be a pretty small thing. But why not?" Burry
said.