Feasibility of Manufacturing Tobacco with Very Low Nicotine Levels

Objective: In this paper, we evaluate the effectiveness of agricultural approaches and manufacturing techniques that can be applied to reduce nicotine content of tobacco to minimally addictive levels (< 0.4 mg/g). Methods: Using a semi-structured approach, we searched scientific and grey literature including patents and internal industry documents, using keywords like tobacco, nicotine, alkaloids, denic(otinized) tobacco, reduced nicotine content, very low nicotine tobacco. Results: Nicotine can be reduced via genetic modification or traditional breeding techniques. Contents and emissions are similar to regular cigarettes, but consumers rated them as less satisfactory. Extraction techniques yield less palatable tobacco too, due to co-extraction of flavor components in tobacco. Microbial and enzymatic degradation lead to other, mostly undesirable, changes to tobacco. Supercritical extraction resulted in a taste most similar to regular cigarettes, but still failed in the marketplace. Conclusions: Most of the available techniques are successful in reducing nicotine levels, sometimes to levels lower than 0.4 mg/g. However, in almost all cases, the resulting tobacco leads to a less satisfactory smoking experience. Although reduction of nicotine to a non-addictive level is feasible from a technical perspective, it is not clear whether such measures could be successfully implemented.