Business Notes TOBACCO

The American Medical Association calls it a "drug delivery device." The R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. touts it as a "cleaner smoke." The product in dispute is Premier, RJR's so-called smokeless cigarette, which the A.M.A. contends should be federally regulated. The feud has been fanned by a recent issue of the Journal of the A.M.A., which portrays Premier as a product that fosters nicotine addiction.

The most sensational charge in J.A.M.A. is contained in a letter from researchers who claim that Premier, a cigarette-size cylinder that heats tobacco rather than burns it, can be used to smoke crack, the cocaine derivative. That one has lit a fuse at RJR. Last week research head G. Robert Di Marco attacked the accusations in J.A.M.A. as "distortions to further the political goals of its parent organization."