The R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company is planning to introduce a so-called "smokeless cigarette". This product called Premier is an aluminum cylinder filled with porous alumina beads, corked with charcoal. The company has strongly hinted that the cigarette will provide the user with a dose of nicotine adequate to sustain nicotine dependence while lowering the risks of lung cancer, household fire, and annoyance to nonsmokers. None of these claims has been validated by thorough, independent review. Available data strongly suggest that this nicotine inhaler, if marketed, will be attractive to novices, highly addictive, and toxic in significant ways. It is expected that this product will make achieving abstinence more difficult and will also encourage relapse to nicotine addiction. In a narrow, legal sense, the struggle over whether Premier will be subject to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulation lies in a matter of definition, whether or not the product is a cigarette. The intended pleasure effect is clearly a drug effect, the result of the pharmacologic effects of nicotine on the central nervous system. The FDA might assert jurisdiction over products such as Premier which are markedly different from traditional tobacco products while seeking specific legislative authority to permit it to appropriately regulate traditional tobacco products in a manner which does not create tobacco prohibition. (ABL)