The AP reported the high-nicotine tobacco — called fumo louco, or crazy tobacco, by the growers — was the offspring of a genetically altered plant created in US laboratories for Brown and Williamson.

In Brazil, farmers working for a subsidiary of the U.S. cigarettemaker surreptitiously used the seeds to raise what they called ''fumo louco'' — high-nicotine ''crazy tobacco.''

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.