A 51-year-old man who says he was a chain smoker of Marlboro cigarettes for 34 years filed a small claims lawsuit Tuesday against Philip Morris seeking compensation for kicking the habit.

The man, industrial design engineer Al Deskiewicz, is asking a district judge on Mercer Island, just east of Seattle, to order the tobacco company to pay him $1,153.44 in expenses incurred in his effort to stop smoking.The amount would cover doctor visits, the price of nicotine patches and the cost of a one-year membership in a health club he is using to shed 12 pounds he has gained since he quit smoking Jan. 1.

Philip Morris representatives told reporters the case, which will be heard in June, was frivolous and without merit.

None of the roughly 300 lawsuits brought against the tobacco industry in more than three decades has been successful, but most tried to link cigarette smoking with cancers rather than making the case it was habit-forming.

"I am at this particular point probably the ultimate threat to the tobacco industry," Deskiewicz told reporters after a brief court appearance. "When I win, the other 52 million smokers out there might decide to do the same thing."

"Some day we've got to look back and say `how could the nation tolerate a situation where a legal narcotic drug kills approximately half a million people a year?' "

Philip Morris said it would fight the lawsuit.

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