Washington ? From cereal to corn chips, Americans consume a variety of products made from genetically engineered crops. They can soon add cigarettes to the list new smokes are due this spring with tobacco genetically altered to be very low in nicotine.

A new Agriculture Department study confirmed the low levels of nicotine, the chemical that gets smokers hooked, in the biotech tobacco and found that the crop poses little risk to the environment.

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Tobacco from crops grown on department-supervised test plots last summer is going into the cigarettes made by Vector Group, parent company of Durham, N.C.-based cigarette maker Vector Tobacco.

The company has asked the Agriculture Department to remove restrictions on where and how the tobacco can be grown, and the agency probably will go along. The tobacco was genetically altered to block the production of nicotine in the plant’s roots.

“This thing could be a home run and it could flop. We think the odds are that it is going to be a successful product,” said Donald Trott, an analyst with the brokerage firm Jefferies and Company Inc.

Vector, which makes Eve-brand cigarettes, has not said where it will sell the biotech cigarettes beginning in the spring or what they will be called.

Trott said people who have tried the cigarettes say they light, smoke and taste like ordinary cigarettes.

Government approval would make the tobacco one of the first biotech crops to have a consumer use.

Tobacco industry critics fear low-nicotine cigarettes could encourage more smoking. “A nicotine-free cigarette could still deliver very high levels of harmful toxic substances,” said Matthew Meyers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

Many tobacco farmers and Vector’s rival cigarette manufacturers are concerned about the product, too. Growers say the biotech tobacco could get mixed with conventional leaf and jeopardize U.S. exports.