22nd Century Group, Inc. announced that the company will significantly expand its growing program for VLN reduced nicotine content tobacco based on the company’s latest sales projections. This new planting for VLN tobacco is in addition to the company’s sizeable inventory of VLN tobacco, which is earmarked for the launch and initial sales of 22nd Century’s VLN reduced nicotine content cigarettes. 22nd Century’s Modified Risk Tobacco Product application for VLN cigarettes is currently in the final stage of review with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Once authorization is granted, 22nd Century will begin marketing its VLN cigarettes, which contain 95% less nicotine than conventional cigarette brands. Having the only combustible cigarette with a modified exposure claim authorized by the FDA could serve as a catalyst for 22nd Century’s commercial sales as capturing even a small fraction of U.S. tobacco sales could result in exponential growth in the company’s revenues and market capitalization. In partnership with select tobacco farmers, 22nd Century will plant this new VLN tobacco throughout the U.S. tobacco belt, thereby creating a new income stream for America’s struggling family farmers. The company’s proprietary, reduced nicotine content tobacco contains, on average, just 0.5 milligrams of nicotine per gram of tobacco - a remarkable reduction in nicotine versus conventional cigarette tobaccos which often contain 20 mg to 30 mg nicotine per gram of tobacco. With 95% less nicotine than typical cigarettes, VLN cigarettes will serve as a vanguard for the FDA’s ground-breaking Comprehensive Plan for Tobacco and Nicotine Regulation. Published in 2017, the plan aims to set a product standard for cigarettes that achieves minimally or non-addictive levels of nicotine. The FDA projects that within the first year of implementing a mandate, it will help more than five million adult smokers to quit smoking and will save more than eight million American lives by the end of the century. Within 90 days of the FDA’s authorization of its MRTP application, the company plans to rollout VLN King and VLN Menthol King cigarettes to retail tobacco outlets in the U.S. The launch of VLN will be paired with a compelling marketing campaign to introduce adult tobacco smokers to the world’s lowest nicotine content cigarette.