A drop in nicotine requirements in cigarettes could soon come: Shots

The Food and Drug Administration wants to limit nicotine in cigarettes and other combustible tobacco products, a move that the outgoing Biden administration and tobacco control advocates say could make smoking much less addictive and easier to quit.

The FDA released the proposed rule on Wednesday.

Nicotine is the substance in cigarettes that makes them very addictive, and Erika Sward, assistant vice president of national advocacy at the American Lung Association, says that capping the amount allowed in cigarettes at very low or non-addictive levels could have a huge impact on the popularity of smoking. Sward says there is ample evidence showing that such a measure would significantly reduce both smoking and the nearly half a million smoking-related deaths in the country each year.

Additionally, she says, it would significantly reduce youth smoking initiation: “We can imagine a scenario in which children lured by industry marketing, online influencers and flavored tobacco products pick up a cigarette but do not become regular users. » she said at a press conference this week.

The idea of ​​limiting nicotine levels in cigarettes originated seven years ago, during the first Trump administration. The second Donald Trump administration is expected to finalize the FDA’s proposed rule after it undergoes a public comment period.

If it goes into effect, the new rule would shake up the tobacco market, says David Spross, executive director of the National Association of Tobacco Outlets. He said it would simply push cigarette sales underground, with unregulated products being smuggled across borders, for example. Spross says that in states and localities where menthol and other flavored cigarettes are banned, consumers have been able to purchase them across state lines.

“We would see a strong increase in the illicit market,” he says.

“Smoking rates are at historic lows, and reducing the nicotine content of cigarettes will not make these products less risky or improve public health,” said Luis Pinto, a spokesman for Reynolds American Inc., in an emailed statement. Pinto says this would hurt farmers and retailers financially, while benefiting from a new black market for traditional nicotine cigarettes.

Smoking has been in steady decline since the late 1990s, but rates remain higher in some rural communities and in urban neighborhoods among minorities and people of color.

That includes Cleveland, where the city’s public health director, Dr. David Margolius, says heavy advertising and marketing has kept the adult smoking rate at 35 percent, well above the national average about 11%.

“As a result, we have one of the highest, if not the highest, rates of lung cancer deaths in the United States and, as a result, our life expectancy in many of our neighborhoods is in the mid-to-late 1900s. 60,” Margolius explains.

It’s unclear how much support this effort might have under the new Trump administration, but the president’s nominee to lead Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has spoken extensively about the prevalence of preventable chronic diseases , including cardiovascular diseases.

While a sweeping policy shift is expected with the new administration, tobacco control advocates like Dr. Giridhar Mallya, senior policy officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, say limits on nicotine — and reduction cigarette sales more generally – are consistent with the new president’s goals. campaign rhetoric.

“Evidence-based policy measures on tobacco control – including banning menthol – would be very aligned with the idea of ​​tackling chronic diseases,” says Mallya.

Of course, rules to reduce nicotine in cigarettes would have no impact on nicotine in e-cigarettes, which have largely replaced combustible tobacco as one of the primary ways young people now consume nicotine.