Alternative Cigarettes, Inc., a Buffalo-based micro cigarette company, announced that it had obtained exclusive rights from the North Carolina State University for an invention to eliminate nicotine in tobacco

The technology, which has a patent pending, reportedly blocks the key enzyme that produces nicotine through an extremely complex genetic sequence. Alternative Cigarettes expects to begin marketing various brands of nicotine-free tobacco cigarettes in 1998. Additionally, the company plans to introduce low-nicotine brands which will be a blend of conventional tobacco with no-nicotine tobacco.