A manufacturing plant in College Park, Ga., will roll out a new cigarette next week made with a garden favorite–lettuce.
Nicotine-free Bravo cigarettes are the invention of Puzant Torigian, a New Jersey parmaceutical chemist who has worked 40 years to come up with a tobacco alternative.
“I started with lettuce, but conventional wisdom is that a scientist’s first hunch can’t be right, so I tried over 200 different plant substances,” Torigian said. “But I ended up right back at lettuce.”
Torigian said his goal is to help those addicted to tobacco smoking kick the habit by giving them a nicotine-free alternative that looks and burns like a cigarette, even though the taste, he admits, is not exactly the same.
He urges that while Bravo is a safer smoke than tobacco, it’s not completely safe. “Nothing you ingest that doesn’t belong in your body is safe,” he said.
