BUILDING A BETTER SMOKE; COMPANY TO TEST CIGARETTE HOLDER : HOW THE NEW CIGARETTE WORKS.

Byline: Glenn Collins The New York Times

Philip Morris Cos. is planning to test a microelectronic cigarette holder that eliminates the smoke and ashes from the end of a cigarette.

The battery-powered ``smoking system'' is the first of its kind and cost $200 million to develop after years of research.

The device is a beeper-sized, 4-ounce box containing a specially designed cigarette and an electronically controlled lighter that runs on rechargeable batteries. The tobacco burns only when puffed; smokers could take a puff from a cigarette in its holder, put it down and take another puff an hour later.

But smokers must lift the device to their lips for each puff, as if smoking a kazoo. That is not exactly the cool image of Humphrey Bogart with a cigarette dangling from his lips. One future sight could well be a person walking with a cellular phone in one hand, the smoking device in the other - and no more hands for carrying the laptop computer.

Critics say the device demonstrates the lengths to which the tobacco industry will go to make a dangerous addiction more socially acceptable. Richard A. Daynard, chairman of an anti-tobacco group, the Tobacco Products Liability Project at the Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, dismissed it as ``clearly another nicotine-delivery device.''

He added: ``Who would use an expensive and cumbersome thing like this if they weren't hooked? There is something grim and desperate about it. This is hardly the Marlboro Man, getting on his horse and checking the battery.''

He added that children might be able to use the device to conceal smoking from parents. (A microchip in the device is equipped with the equivalent of the television v-chip - a locking device for use by parents, Philip Morris said.)

But the new product, tentatively called the Accord, could find a big market among the ``many smokers who voluntarily restrict their smoking at home or in a car or because their spouse doesn't like it,'' said John R. Nelson, the senior vice president of business development for Philip Morris USA, the company's U.S. subsidiary. ``We think our product would appeal to them.''

Over the next month, the Accord will be made available to smokers in controlled tests in the United States and Japan. It will not be commercially available in test markets for at least a year.

``Ultimately, the success of Accord will depend on its taste and convenience,'' said Martin Feldman, a tobacco analyst for Smith Barney.

The device will eliminate the smoke from a burning cigarette that accounts for 90 percent of secondhand smoke. But smokers will still inhale the same 3 milligrams of tar and 0.2 milligram of nicotine that is in conventional so-called ultralight cigarettes like the company's Merit, Virginia Slims and Benson & Hedges brands.

Also, users will still exhale smoke. Philip Morris, the world's largest cigarette company, said the product was not intended to get around laws that restrict smoking. ``This is a cigarette-smoking system governed by the same rules restricting smoking in public places,'' said Karen Daragan, a Philip Morris spokeswoman.

Accord cigarettes are 62 millimeters long, shorter than the 85-millimeter conventional cigarette, and will cost the same as premium cigarettes: $2.50 to $2.75 a pack. The cigarette holder, which the company has trademarked as its ``Puff Activated Lighter,'' as well as a battery recharger and a pack of Accords will be sold in starter boxes for $50, according to the company's initial projections. The company contends that cost is competitive with a year's supply of disposable lighters.

The company will test whether smokers, accustomed to the ritual of handling and lighting cigarettes, will want to use its ``smoke-in-the-box'' system. A reporter found that the Accord took some getting used to, requiring a slower draw for each puff than a conventional cigarette.

Indeed, smokers will have to create a new routine, buying a new brand of cigarettes and remembering to recharge the battery in the lighter for each pack. Recharging takes 30 minutes, but smokers can buy extra batteries. Nelson said, ``The beeper and the cell phone took a while to win acceptance, too.''

Smoking advocates backed him up.

``I think smokers have always been receptive to trying new innovations from the tobacco industry,'' said Gary Auxier, a spokesman for the National Smokers Alliance, a nonprofit pro-smoker group. ``Smokers have already had to change many rituals in their lives, including where and when they can smoke, so I don't see any barrier to using this product.''

The company said it would not try to market Accord as a safer cigarette, although Nelson contended that the controlled temperature would reduce some harmful effects. The company will present its research on Accord to peer-review scientific journals and at meetings early next year.

1. Take the new ultra light cigarette out of the pack.

2. Insert the new cigarette in the special ``puff activated'' electronic lighter. The display shows how much of the cigarette is unsmoked and how much of the battery remains.

3. The new cigarette is heated to burn temperature only when the smoker draws on it. The cigarette does now burn up between puffs.

4. There is no burning cigarette end and no sidestream smoke, so the only smoke in the air is the smoke exhaled.

5. When the smoker is finished, the cigarette is removed. It isn't burning and there are no ashes, so disposal is easy.

6. The battery in the lighter lasts for a pack of cigarettes and recharges in about 30 minutes. While it is recharging, the lighter is also cleaning itself.

The New York Times

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