Vector Group Ltd. said on Tuesday that it has developed a cigarette with virtually no nicotine, a potentially nonaddictive alternative to conventional cigarettes.
The Miami company, the parent of discount-cigarette maker Liggett Group, said its Vector Tobacco subsidiary has a patent pending to a process of genetically modifying tobacco seeds to produce a nicotine-free leaf.
Because nicotine is the addictive stimulant found in conventional tobacco, Vector hopes U.S. regulators will approve the new product as a smoking-cessation aid and that it will increase Liggett Group's market share, now at 1.5 percent.
A Vector spokesman said the cigarettes, which the company expects to hit store shelves in early 2002, will be marketed as a matter of of choice, because you want to smoke, not because you have to since it cannot present them as smoking-cessation aids unless the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves them as such.
Initial tests in the United States and overseas indicate that cigarettes produced with this process smoke and taste like a conventional cigarette, Vector said.
If they have a product that helps people quit smoking, even though over-all cigarette consumption would go down, their share of the declining pie would increase, Pecoriello said. Because of their small volume it makes sense for Liggett.
Shares of Vector, which in the past year have traded between $10-1/16 and $19-1/2, rose 1/4 to $18-1/2 in New York Stock Exchange trading on Tuesday.
Reuters