Y1 (tobacco)
Encyclopedia
Y1 is a strain of tobacco
that was cross-bred by Brown & Williamson
to obtain an unusually high nicotine
content. It became controversial in the 1990s when the United States Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) used it as evidence that tobacco companies
were intentionally manipulating the nicotine content of cigarette
s. Y1 has also been investigated by the Pan American Health Organization
(PAHO).
(then a subsidiary of British American Tobacco
) in the late 1970s. Chapin, a director of the USDA Research Laboratory at Oxford, North Carolina
, had described the need for a higher nicotine tobacco plant in the trade publication World Tobacco in 1977, and had bred a number of high-nicotine strains based on a hybrid of Nicotiana tabacum
and Nicotiana rustica
, but they were weak and would blow over in a strong wind. B&W tested five strains on a farm in Wilson
, North Carolina
in 1983. Only two grew to maturity; Y2, which "turned black in the drying barn and smelled like old socks," and Y1, which was a success. B&W brought the plants to California
company DNA Plant Technology
for additional modification, including making the plants male-sterile
, a procedure that prevents competitors from reproducing the strain from seeds. DNA Plant Technology then smuggled the seeds to a B&W subsidiary in Brazil
. A 1991 industry document analyzing the potential of Y1 reported that it had been successfully grown in Brazil, Honduras
and Zimbabwe
but not Venezuela
, and that it was both difficult to cure and susceptible to Granville wilt
.
Brown & Williamson initially attempted to patent
Y1 in the United States in 1991; this was denied. A year later, B&W attempted to patent Y1 in Brazil; this was also denied. An appeal against the US patent denial was rejected in 1994, and later that year all patent applications were withdrawn.
Y1 has a higher nicotine content than conventional flue-cured tobacco (6.5% versus 3.2—3.5%), but a comparable amount of tar, and does not affect taste or aroma. British American Tobacco (BAT) began to discuss the trialling of Y1 tobacco in 1991, despite it not being approved for use in the United States. One ex-employee of BAT stated that Y1 tobacco started to be widely used in cigarette
s in the US in 1993. Tobacco company executives initially denied intentionally manipulating nicotine levels in cigarettes, but eventually acknowledged blending Y1 into brands including Raleigh, Prime and Summit in order to maintain the flavor and nicotine level of the product while lowering the tar content. B&W continued to insist that Y1 was not used to raise nicotine levels, stating "the brands that use Y1 deliver essentially the same nicotine as the products they replaced." B&W promised in 1994 to stop using Y1, but at that time they had 7 million pounds of inventory, and continued to blend Y1 into their products until 1999.
Y1 was also shipped to BAT's cigarette plant in Southampton
, England and to subsidiaries in Germany and Finland, but whether it was used in commercial production is unclear.
(FDA), under Commissioner David Kessler
, conducted an investigation into the tobacco industry, including charges that cigarette manufacturers intentionally manipulated nicotine levels in cigarettes to keep their customers addicted. In early 1994, B&W told the FDA that there was an agreement among US cigarette manufacturers not to manipulate nicotine levels in tobacco. However, FDA investigators discovered a Brazilian patent describing a tobacco plant with an unusually high nicotine content, which led them to B&W and Y1. In testimony before Congress on June 21, 1994, Dr. Kessler accused B&W of knowingly manipulating nicotine levels in some of its cigarettes. B&W chairman Thomas Sandefur rejected the claim, stating that "the brands that use Y1 deliver essentially the same nicotine as the products they replaced" and accusing Dr. Kessler of "grandstanding" for political purposes. Several members of Congress suggested that this proved that tobacco executives had committed perjury
when they denied knowing smoking was addictive in their April 1994 testimony before Congress.
Y1 became an important piece of evidence in FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp.
, a lawsuit in which the FDA attempted to exert its authority under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act
to regulate tobacco products. Dr. Kessler argued that because Y1 had been raised for its higher nicotine level, it was subject to FDA regulation as a pharmacological product, and therefore its importation and sale in the US without the proper FDA approval was illegal. The FDA also targeted DNA Plant Technology
, charging that it had illegally smuggled the Y1 seeds out of the United States. The Justice Department charged DNA Plant Technology with one misdemeanor
count of conspiracy
to violate the Tobacco Seed Export law, prohibiting the export of tobacco seeds without a permit (a law which was repealed in 1991).
DNA Plant Technology pled guilty in 1998 and agreed to cooperate with further investigations of B&W. However, the Supreme Court eventually ruled in March 2000 that the FDA did not have the authority to regulate tobacco as a drug.
The discovery of Y1 fueled allegations that B&W intentionally used Y1 tobacco to increase the addictiveness
of its products, resulting in a number of lawsuits. The state of Minnesota
heavily referred to Y1 tobacco in its 1997 trial against the American tobacco industry (State of Minnesota et al. v. Philip Morris, Inc., et al.), a trial which took place prior to the inception of the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement in November 1998.
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
that was cross-bred by Brown & Williamson
Brown & Williamson
Brown & Williamson was an American tobacco company and subsidiary of the giant British American Tobacco, that produced several popular cigarette brands. It became infamous as the focus of investigations for chemically enhancing the addictiveness of cigarettes...
to obtain an unusually high nicotine
Nicotine
Nicotine is an alkaloid found in the nightshade family of plants that constitutes approximately 0.6–3.0% of the dry weight of tobacco, with biosynthesis taking place in the roots and accumulation occurring in the leaves...
content. It became controversial in the 1990s when the United States Food and Drug Administration
Food and Drug Administration
The Food and Drug Administration is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, one of the United States federal executive departments...
(FDA) used it as evidence that tobacco companies
Tobacco industry
The tobacco industry comprises those persons and companies engaged in the growth, preparation for sale, shipment, advertisement, and distribution of tobacco and tobacco-related products. It is a global industry; tobacco can grow in any warm, moist environment, which means it can be farmed on all...
were intentionally manipulating the nicotine content of cigarette
Cigarette
A cigarette is a small roll of finely cut tobacco leaves wrapped in a cylinder of thin paper for smoking. The cigarette is ignited at one end and allowed to smoulder; its smoke is inhaled from the other end, which is held in or to the mouth and in some cases a cigarette holder may be used as well...
s. Y1 has also been investigated by the Pan American Health Organization
Pan American Health Organization
The Pan American Health Organization is an international public health agency with over 100 years of experience working to improve health and living standards of the people of the Americas...
(PAHO).
Development and use
Y1 was developed by tobacco plant researcher James Chapin, for Brown & WilliamsonBrown & Williamson
Brown & Williamson was an American tobacco company and subsidiary of the giant British American Tobacco, that produced several popular cigarette brands. It became infamous as the focus of investigations for chemically enhancing the addictiveness of cigarettes...
(then a subsidiary of British American Tobacco
British American Tobacco
British American Tobacco p.l.c. is a global tobacco company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the world’s second largest quoted tobacco company by global market share , with a leading position in more than 50 countries and a presence in more than 180 countries...
) in the late 1970s. Chapin, a director of the USDA Research Laboratory at Oxford, North Carolina
Oxford, North Carolina
Oxford is a city in Granville County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 8,461 at the 2010 census It is the county seat of Granville County.-History:...
, had described the need for a higher nicotine tobacco plant in the trade publication World Tobacco in 1977, and had bred a number of high-nicotine strains based on a hybrid of Nicotiana tabacum
Nicotiana tabacum
Nicotiana tabacum, or cultivated tobacco, is a perennial herbaceous plant. It is found only in cultivation, where it is the most commonly grown of all plants in the Nicotiana genus, and its leaves are commercially grown in many countries to be processed into tobacco. It grows to heights between 1...
and Nicotiana rustica
Nicotiana rustica
Nicotiana rustica, known in South America as Mapacho and in Vietnam as Thuoc Lao , is a plant in the Solanaceae family. It is a very potent variety of tobacco. The high concentration of nicotine in its leaves makes it useful for creating organic pesticides.Rustica is also used for entheogenic...
, but they were weak and would blow over in a strong wind. B&W tested five strains on a farm in Wilson
Wilson, North Carolina
Wilson is a city and the county seat of Wilson County in the Coastal Plain region of the U.S. state of North Carolina. The 18th largest city in the state, Wilson had a population of 49,167 according to the 2010 census.- Geography :...
, North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
in 1983. Only two grew to maturity; Y2, which "turned black in the drying barn and smelled like old socks," and Y1, which was a success. B&W brought the plants to California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
company DNA Plant Technology
DNA Plant Technology
DNA Plant Technology was an early pioneer in applying transgenic biotechnology to problems in agriculture. The company was founded in Cinnamonson, New Jersey. In 1994, their headquarters moved to Oakland, California...
for additional modification, including making the plants male-sterile
Cytoplasmic male sterility
Cytoplasmic male sterility is total or partial male sterility associated with plant biology as the result of specific nuclear and mitochondrial interactions...
, a procedure that prevents competitors from reproducing the strain from seeds. DNA Plant Technology then smuggled the seeds to a B&W subsidiary in Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
. A 1991 industry document analyzing the potential of Y1 reported that it had been successfully grown in Brazil, Honduras
Honduras
Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...
and Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
but not Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
, and that it was both difficult to cure and susceptible to Granville wilt
Ralstonia solanacearum
Ralstonia solanacearum is an aerobic non-sporing, Gram-negative plant pathogenic bacterium. R. solanacearum is soil-borne and motile with a polar flagellar tuft. It colonises the xylem, causing bacterial wilt in a very wide range of potential host plants...
.
Brown & Williamson initially attempted to patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
Y1 in the United States in 1991; this was denied. A year later, B&W attempted to patent Y1 in Brazil; this was also denied. An appeal against the US patent denial was rejected in 1994, and later that year all patent applications were withdrawn.
Y1 has a higher nicotine content than conventional flue-cured tobacco (6.5% versus 3.2—3.5%), but a comparable amount of tar, and does not affect taste or aroma. British American Tobacco (BAT) began to discuss the trialling of Y1 tobacco in 1991, despite it not being approved for use in the United States. One ex-employee of BAT stated that Y1 tobacco started to be widely used in cigarette
Cigarette
A cigarette is a small roll of finely cut tobacco leaves wrapped in a cylinder of thin paper for smoking. The cigarette is ignited at one end and allowed to smoulder; its smoke is inhaled from the other end, which is held in or to the mouth and in some cases a cigarette holder may be used as well...
s in the US in 1993. Tobacco company executives initially denied intentionally manipulating nicotine levels in cigarettes, but eventually acknowledged blending Y1 into brands including Raleigh, Prime and Summit in order to maintain the flavor and nicotine level of the product while lowering the tar content. B&W continued to insist that Y1 was not used to raise nicotine levels, stating "the brands that use Y1 deliver essentially the same nicotine as the products they replaced." B&W promised in 1994 to stop using Y1, but at that time they had 7 million pounds of inventory, and continued to blend Y1 into their products until 1999.
Y1 was also shipped to BAT's cigarette plant in Southampton
Southampton
Southampton is the largest city in the county of Hampshire on the south coast of England, and is situated south-west of London and north-west of Portsmouth. Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest...
, England and to subsidiaries in Germany and Finland, but whether it was used in commercial production is unclear.
Legal controversy
Beginning in 1990, the United States Food and Drug AdministrationFood and Drug Administration
The Food and Drug Administration is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, one of the United States federal executive departments...
(FDA), under Commissioner David Kessler
David Aaron Kessler
David Aaron Kessler is an American pediatrician, lawyer, author, and administrator...
, conducted an investigation into the tobacco industry, including charges that cigarette manufacturers intentionally manipulated nicotine levels in cigarettes to keep their customers addicted. In early 1994, B&W told the FDA that there was an agreement among US cigarette manufacturers not to manipulate nicotine levels in tobacco. However, FDA investigators discovered a Brazilian patent describing a tobacco plant with an unusually high nicotine content, which led them to B&W and Y1. In testimony before Congress on June 21, 1994, Dr. Kessler accused B&W of knowingly manipulating nicotine levels in some of its cigarettes. B&W chairman Thomas Sandefur rejected the claim, stating that "the brands that use Y1 deliver essentially the same nicotine as the products they replaced" and accusing Dr. Kessler of "grandstanding" for political purposes. Several members of Congress suggested that this proved that tobacco executives had committed perjury
Perjury
Perjury, also known as forswearing, is the willful act of swearing a false oath or affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to a judicial proceeding. That is, the witness falsely promises to tell the truth about matters which affect the outcome of the...
when they denied knowing smoking was addictive in their April 1994 testimony before Congress.
Y1 became an important piece of evidence in FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp.
FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp.
FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., is an important case in the development of American administrative law.-Legal principle:The scope of authority held by an agency is determined by the agency's organic statute...
, a lawsuit in which the FDA attempted to exert its authority under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act
Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act
The United States Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act , is a set of laws passed by Congress in 1938 giving authority to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to oversee the safety of food, drugs, and cosmetics. A principal author of this law was Royal S. Copeland, a three-term U.S. Senator from...
to regulate tobacco products. Dr. Kessler argued that because Y1 had been raised for its higher nicotine level, it was subject to FDA regulation as a pharmacological product, and therefore its importation and sale in the US without the proper FDA approval was illegal. The FDA also targeted DNA Plant Technology
DNA Plant Technology
DNA Plant Technology was an early pioneer in applying transgenic biotechnology to problems in agriculture. The company was founded in Cinnamonson, New Jersey. In 1994, their headquarters moved to Oakland, California...
, charging that it had illegally smuggled the Y1 seeds out of the United States. The Justice Department charged DNA Plant Technology with one misdemeanor
Misdemeanor
A misdemeanor is a "lesser" criminal act in many common law legal systems. Misdemeanors are generally punished much less severely than felonies, but theoretically more so than administrative infractions and regulatory offences...
count of conspiracy
Conspiracy (crime)
In the criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to break the law at some time in the future, and, in some cases, with at least one overt act in furtherance of that agreement...
to violate the Tobacco Seed Export law, prohibiting the export of tobacco seeds without a permit (a law which was repealed in 1991).
DNA Plant Technology pled guilty in 1998 and agreed to cooperate with further investigations of B&W. However, the Supreme Court eventually ruled in March 2000 that the FDA did not have the authority to regulate tobacco as a drug.
The discovery of Y1 fueled allegations that B&W intentionally used Y1 tobacco to increase the addictiveness
Substance dependence
The section about substance dependence in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders does not use the word addiction at all. It explains:...
of its products, resulting in a number of lawsuits. The state of Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
heavily referred to Y1 tobacco in its 1997 trial against the American tobacco industry (State of Minnesota et al. v. Philip Morris, Inc., et al.), a trial which took place prior to the inception of the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement in November 1998.