(FORTUNE Magazine) – The smoking world lost a friend in June when Philip Morris Magazine took its last gasp. It was seven. At its circulation peak, when the glossy giveaway came out six times a year, it claimed some 13 million readers (more than National Geographic, a little less than T.V. Guide) and offered a mix of celebrity profiles, news, and essays on the pleasure and romance of smoking. Its credo always seemed to be ''Smokers are people, too.'' In fact, smokers usually were depicted as more human than nonsmokers -- more easygoing, more fun loving, more sensual. Antismokers were persnickety, pinched, and put on earth to bedevil smokers. The final issue contains a letter to the editor from Eugene in California. Headlined FAIR PLAY, it reads in part, ''I lit up a great cigar at an Oakland A's game. The lady sitting next to me asked me to put it out. I replied, 'Do you think this is the opera house?' She moved.''

Philip Morris says it stopped publication because the magazine, already a quarterly, had become redundant now that smokers' rights groups in several states publish newsletters. Another reason: Since ex-smoker Michael Miles became CEO in 1991, Philip Morris has been easing up on the pro-smoking PR pedal it floored for so long.