Y1 (tobacco) - Development and Use

Development and Use

Y1 was developed by tobacco plant researcher James Chapin, for Brown & Williamson (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 An appeal against the US patent denial was rejected in 1994, and later that year all patent applications were withdrawn.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 cigarettes 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.