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The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is moving forward with a regulatory rule in the last days of the Biden administration that would effectively ban cigarettes currently on the market in favor of products with lower nicotine levels, which could end up boosting business for cartels operating on the black market, an expert tells Fox News Digital.
“Biden’s ban is a gift with a bow and balloons organized crime cartels with him, be it cartels, Chinese organized crime or the Russian mafia. It’s going to keep America smoking and make the streets more violent,” Rich Marianos, former deputy director of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and current president of the Network of Application of the Digital Tobacco Law of the proposal.
The FDA confirmed to Fox Digital on Monday that as of Jan. 3, the tobacco product standard for the nicotine level of certain tobacco products had completed a regulatory review, but that the proposed rule has not yet been finalized .
“The proposed rule, “Tobacco Product Standard for the Nicotine Level of Certain Tobacco Products,” is listed in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) ROCIS system as a regulatory review completed on January 3,” an FDA spokesperson told Fox Digital. “As FDA has previously stated, a product standard proposal to establish a maximum nicotine level to reduce the addictiveness of cigarettes and some other burnt tobacco productswhen completed, it is estimated to be among the most impactful population-level actions in the history of US tobacco regulation. At this time, FDA cannot offer any further comment until this is published.”
Fox New Digital reached out the white house regarding concerns about the proposal should it take effect but received no response.
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President Biden speaks in Washington, DC, USA on Monday, December 16, 2024. The FDA confirmed to Fox Digital that effective January 3, the tobacco product standard for the nicotine level of certain products of tabac had completed a regulatory review, but that the proposed rule has not yet been finalized. (Samuel Corum/Girl/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Former President Barack Obama signed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act in 2009, which gave the FDA the power to regulate tobacco products. In the years since, the agency has worked to lower nicotine levels, including in July 2017 under the Trump administration, when then-FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb announced he would try to require companies to tobacco that would drastically reduce the nicotine in cigarettes in an effort to help adults. smokers quit smoking.
In 2022, the FDA under the Biden administration announced plans for the proposed rule that would reduce nicotine levels to be less addictive or non-addictive.
“Reducing nicotine levels to minimally addictive or non-addictive levels would reduce the likelihood that future generations of young people will become addicted to cigarettes and help the most addicted smokers today to quit,” said FDA Commissioner Robert Califf .
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Lowering nicotine levels in cigarettes and other commonly purchased tobacco products would open the floodgates to the illicit trade of tobacco products in the US, Marianos told Fox News Digital.
“This decision is being shoved down the public’s throat without an iota of thought and preparation. No one sat down with law enforcementnobody sat down with any doctor, nobody sat down with any regulator to find out, “Hey, look, what are the unintended ramifications of such a bad choice,” and I’ll put it this way, a bad choice. Marianos said.
Woman lighting a cigarette. (Photo by JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP)
He explained that Mexican cartels are well positioned to bring illegal tobacco across the border, as they do with substances like fentanyl that have devastated communities in the United States. while Chinese criminal organizations have some of the best counterfeiting operations ranging from baby formula to cigarettes, and Russian organized crime groups have a foot in the door in cities across the country, including wineries and other stores that they sell tobacco products.
Marianos said criminal groups would likely jump on the proposal if it goes into effect and subsequently expand their tobacco operations, which he says will serve as a financial boon for criminals.
Immigrants try to cross into the US from Mexico at the border on December 17, 2023 in Jacumba Hot Springs, California. (Photo by Nick Ut/Getty Images)
Americans who want to buy cigarettes with higher nicotine levels would have to go through illicit channels to obtain them, similar to buying “loose” cigarettes on the streets of New York, putting average Americans in more criminal risk while offering them cigarettes. that are not regulated and come from foreign nations.
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Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers have already warned that the tobacco trade in the US poses a serious threat to national security and already has its foot in the door.
A couple smoking cigarettes. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)
“In 2015, the State Department cited activity by terrorist groups and criminal networks that have used tobacco trafficking operations to finance other crimes, including” money laundering, bulk cash trafficking, and trafficking in human beings, weapons, drugs, antiquities, diamonds, etc. and counterfeit products,'” Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La.; Mark Warner, D-Va.; Marco Rubio, R-Fla.; Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn.; and then-Sen. Bob Casey, D- Pa., wrote in a 2023 letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
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“Recently, public reports have also noted these financial links between Mexican transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) involved in narcotics and fentanyl trafficking and these tobacco smuggling activities. Mexican TCOs pose a serious threat to the U.S. national security and public health.”
Marianos added that in addition to the criminal effect it poses to America and its residents, reducing nicotine levels would also defeat the stated mission of weaning smokers off cigarettes and instead lead to an increase in smoking.
The FDA is moving forward with a regulatory rule in the final days of the Biden administration that would effectively ban cigarettes currently on the market in favor of products with lower levels of nicotine. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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“You’re going to create more smoking. And I thought that’s what we’re trying to get away from, right? Smoking is bad. I thought we’re trying to do everything we can to get away from that and get the country more sure.. well, if you lower the nicotine levels, people will smoke more, all you have to do is drive here in DC and you know the workers on their smoke break He said, saying that work productivity even is will reduce as people take more smoke breaks in alleys to get their nicotine fix.
The Biden administration previously sought to ban menthol cigarettes entirely, in what was described as a “critical” piece of President Biden’s Cancer Moonshot initiative, but last year announced it was sharply delaying those regulations, already that the public denounced the measure. A handful of groups argued that the menthol ban unfairly targeted minority communities, while others argued that the ban would open the door to illicit menthol sales.
