SANTA BARBARA, CALIF.— TO the jury, the arguments were new, but to the defendant, R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, they were the same issues that had been tried in dozens of suits: Should Reynolds, the nation's second largest cigarette manufacturer, be held responsible for the death of John M. Galbraith, a chain smoker who died of lung cancer in 1982? After deliberating nine hours, the jurors - one smoker, some nonsmokers and some former smokers - found in favor of the company. But they went out of their way to say that they had done so reluctantly.

''We want to stress that we don't like smoking, and we feel smoking is harmful,'' said the foreman, Stacy Proft. The reason the jury could not rule against Reynolds, she went on, was that the ''evidence wasn't there.''

Counting the Galbraith verdict, the tobacco industry has faced 147 product liability suits since the late 1950's, and it has won them all, according to Reynolds. So at least for now, the consumer who chooses to smoke, not the company that manufactured the product, bears the responsibility for the illnesses that result. But there are at least 45 suits pending against Reynolds and more against other manufacturers. Six were filed against the company during the five weeks the Galbraith trial was under way. According to Marc Cohen, a tobacco securities analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, two cases were withdrawn last week after the verdict was announced, but the number seems certain to grow.

Melvin Belli, the 77-year-old San Francisco lawyer who represented Mr. Galbraith's family, said after the trial that the jurors did not find enough evidence to hold Reynolds liable because the judge had refused to let him introduce crucial information. He had been barred from relying on the 1964 Surgeon General's Report, which first discussed the relatioship between smoking and health, and he had been unable to offer witnesses to describe the role advertising played in diminishing the impact of Government-mandated cigarette warnings.

As a result, said Mr. Belli, he was unable to prove that Reynolds failed to warn consumers before 1964 of the dangers of smoking. ''We didn't win on this one,'' he said, ''but there are others.'' Mr. Belli said he plans to appeal.

Once considered invulnerable to lawsuits, tobacco companies are now being attacked under the same laws used by consumers to seek damages from chemical and drug companies and other manufacturers whose products cause injury or disease, sometimes after many years of use. In such cases, the plaintiff seeks compensation under the theory that the company acted negligently when it failed to warn the public about its product's dangers.

John L. Strauch, a lawyer for Reynolds, said a finding against cigarette manufacturers would lead to liability suits involving other consumer products, adding: ''Why not put butter on trial for causing heart disease?''

Mr. Strauch maintains that consumers should be responsible for their own behavior and that certain risks are inherent in life. ''One is responsible for deciding to smoke or not to smoke,'' he said, adding that 35 million Americans have quit. ''What these cases are about is personal decision-making.''

Juries that have found against other manufacturers in product liability cases have often awarded millions of dollars to plaintiffs. Given the millions of smokers who have died of smoking-related illnesses, a successful suit could quickly lead to thousands of other cases, as asbestos manufacturers learned when their product came under fire. That could cripple the $60-billon-a-year tobacco industry. Financial analysts who follow tobacco stocks attended the trial or had daily transcripts sent to them in New York.

In general, courts have refused to find manufacturers liable in cigarette and alcohol cases, saying that the dangers of these products are known in the marketplace and that the consumer is free to use them or not - at his own peril.