News

Secret genetic engineering produces high nicotine tobacco

Evidence that genetic engineering has been used to double the nicotine content of tobacco leaf emerged during recent congressional hearings in the US.

Tobacco industry chiefs were told they could face criminal proceedings for ‘deliberately misleading Congress’ as a result.

Dr David Kessler, commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration, told congress that the Brown and Williamson corporation had engineered a new strain of tobacco, known as Y-1, which contains 6.2 per cent nicotine. Flue-cured tobacco usually contains 2.4 to 3 per cent nicotine.

‘This plant represents a dramatic attempt to manipulate nicotine,’ Dr Kessler told the congressional health and energy committee.

The production of the strain is widely regarded as an attempt to produce a more addictive cigarette which would be harder to quit or switch from.

The company has downplayed the significance of the allegations, saying that the new strain was originally developed by the US Agriculture Department ‘years ago’.

Meanwhile, the tobacco industry is hitting back at growing legal curbs on public smoking in the US, claiming that the government is ‘pursuing a new era of prohibition’.

‘Today it’s cigarettes. Tomorrow — will alcohol be next? Will caffeine be next? Will high fat foods be next?’, say newspaper adverts placed by the RJ Reynolds tobacco company.