The US Food and Drug Administration /FDA/ wants to limit nicotine in cigarettes and other tobacco products, a step that could make smoking much less addictive and easier to quit.
Nicotine is the substance in cigarettes that makes them highly addictive. Erica Sward, assistant vice president for national advocacy at the American Lung Association, explained that limiting the amount allowed in cigarettes to very low or non-addictive levels could have a huge impact on the popularity of smoking. Sward pointed out that there is ample evidence that such a step would result in half a million fewer smoking-related deaths in the country each year.
"We can imagine a scenario where kids who are lured by industry marketing, online influencers and flavoured tobacco products try a cigarette but don't become regular smokers," the expert added.
The idea of limiting nicotine levels in cigarettes originated seven years ago, during the first Trump administration. His second administration will have to finalize the FDA's proposed rule after it goes through a public hearing.
If enacted, the new rule would upend the tobacco market, said David Spross, executive director of the National Association of Tobacco Merchants. He argues that such a decision would simply drive cigarette sales underground with smuggling of unregulated products. Sprotz said that in states and localities where menthol and other flavored cigarettes are banned, consumers have been able to buy them imported from other countries across the border.
"We're going to see a huge increase in the illegal market," he asserted.
"Smoking rates are at historically low levels, and reducing the nicotine content of cigarettes will not make these products less risky or improve public health," asserted Luis Pinto, a spokesman for Reynolds American Inc. Pinto argues that such a move would hurt retailers financially while benefiting a new black market for traditional nicotine cigarettes.
Cigarette smoking has steadily declined since the late 1990s, but smoking rates remain higher in some rural communities and in urban neighborhoods among minorities and Americans of color. | BGNES
