Source: Contra Costa Times Contact: Tue, 23 Dec 1997 BRAZIL'S SECRET EXPORT: SUPERNICOTINE TOBACCO SANTA CRUZ DE SOL, Brazil Freakish tobacco plants that explode from the soil in this remote river valley grow huge leaves on stalks as thick as Louisville Sluggers. The growers here call it fumo louco. (Crazy tobacco.) Crazy not just because it grows so big and so fast. Crazy because it has been genetically altered by one of the world's largest tobacco companies to pack twice the nicotine of other commercially grown leaf. The farmers of Brazil's Southernmost state are growing it by the ton for the world market, Associated Press has found, though it could not be learned for certain which countries are importing it. Fumo louco the farmers' generic term for several related strains of highnicotine tobacco is the offspring of a genetically altered plant created in U.S. laboratories for Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., the thirdlargest U.S. cigarette maker. FDA unaware of extent Over the past year, AP has observed its cultivation and harvest on snall farms all over the state of Rio Grande do Sul, from Paulo Berganthai's 10acre, tableflat plantation, to Neury de Oliveira's 20 mistshrouded acres in the high country. Some of these varieties are so high in nicotine that smokers might get sick smoking them in their pure form, but they can be blended with cheaper, weaker tobaccos to make cigarettes with nicotine levels that satisfy smokers. Fumo louco blends give cigarette makers a new tool for adjusting nicotine levels in their products. They may also provide the Food and Drug Administrafion with a new argument for the assertion that the tobacco industry intentionally manufactures nicotine levels to "hook" smokers. The FDA's desire to regulate nicotine as a drug is a major stumbling block in the $365.5 billion litigahon settlement between the industry and the attorneys general of 40 states. The FDA has been aware that a highnicotine tobacco had been developed but did not know that it is being cultivated in large commercial quantities, said Mitch Zeller, an FDA deputy associate commissioner. However, 18 Brazilian farmers Qpenly acknowledged they are growing it by the ton, and many said they have been growing it for more than five years. "It's weird stuff," Oliveira said in his native Portuguese. The nicotine content is so high that "just the crazy smell of it gets you dizzy. But, sir, it comes up like nothing you've ever seen." Farmers estimated that half of the roughly 40,000 acres under tobacco cultivation in the region are devoted to the highnicotine leaf. That means an area about one andahalf times the size of the island of Manhattan is covered in fumo louco. The farmers said they sell to Souza Cruz, a Brazilian company owned by BAT Industries, the same British conglomerate that controls Brown & Williamson. Souza Cruz did not respond to questions. Brown & Williamson spokesman Mark Smith said that "it would be inappropriate for us to comment" because of pending government investigations. The Jusfice Department has convened grand juries in Washington, D.C., and New York state to investigate whether tobacco companies and their officials lied to the government about manipulating nicotine levels in their products. After farmers sell their fumo louco to Souza Cruz, it goes to the company's processing plant in Santa Cruz do Sul. Souza Cruz boasts it is the world's biggest. About a third of the tobacco processed there is highnicotine leaf, according to Louis Radaelli, a company genetics researcher, and several former Souza Cruz technical experts. Once the leaf enters the plant, it is difficult to learn where it goes. Souza Cruz mixes it with other tobaccos to form some of its blends and the recipes are trade secrets. Souza Cruz is among the world's biggest exporters of tobacco, and about a fifth of its production goes to cigarette makers in the United States. The FDA learned in 1994 that Brown & Williamson had developed a nicotinerich plantcodenamed Y1 and that limited quantities had been grown in Brazil in the early 1990s. Some of it was imported by Brown & Williamson, which used it as an ingredient in five cigarette brands sold in the United States in 1993 and 1994. Although this was legal, the FDA was concerned enough about the implications to disclose its findings to Congress in July of 1994. Brown & Williamson executives responded by assuring the agency that they had dropped the project and stopped using Yl in their Raleigh Lights, Richland Lights King Size, Viceroy King Size, Viceroy Lights King Size and Richland King Size cigarettes. That appeared to be the end of the story. It wasn't. AP has learned: *Y1 cultivation began in Brazil 1 1983, according to former Souza Cruz agronomists. That is years earlier than the FDA realized. *Souza Cruz, according to its own figures, shipped nearly 8,000 tons of Y1 to the United States for Brown & Williamson between 1990 and 1994 nearly double the amount the FDA knew had been imported. *Souza Cruz's own experiments with Y1 have produced hundreds of new strains of highnicotine tobacco some of which are being grown commercially in Brazil, according to former Souza Cruz agronomists. Months after the FDAs Y1 disclosure to Congress, growers and Souza Cruz agronomists said, the company ordered farmers to stop cultivating highnicotine strains. But the growers have kept planting it and, they say, Souza Cruz keeps buying it, praising its quality and paying top prices. Grower David Moraes led reporter to his sorting barn and threw open the door. Bitter air buffeted the senses. A sting in the back of the throat tighened into a knot. Lips tighte Eyes tingled, itched, watered. A queasiness spread from the pit of the stomach up through chest. "That," said Moraes, "is the bit of fumo louco."