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The new rule could reduce nicotine levels in tobacco products



The Biden administration is about to try to reduce the amount of nicotine in tobacco products, an eleventh-hour effort that has been years in the making.

The move would give the White House one last chance to try to regulate tobacco, as it previously pledged to end a longstanding promise of ban menthol flavored cigarettes.

The rule has not been made public, so the specific language is not known, but tobacco companies are expected to reduce the amount of nicotine in cigarettes and potentially other products to make them less addictive.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) could publish it on Monday after it passed the regulatory review earlier this month.

But that would only begin a bureaucratic journey that anti-tobacco advocates fear the incoming Trump administration could derail.

Smoking is the leading preventable cause of disease, death and disability in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), killing more than 480,000 people each year. More than 16 million Americans live with a smoking-related disease.

Most adults who smoke cigarettes want to quit, and half report trying to quit in the past year, according to a CDC September survey. However, fewer than 1 in 10 adults who smoke cigarettes succeed in quitting, drawn back by the highly addictive nicotine that changes people’s brain chemistry to make them want to smoke more.

“Lowering nicotine levels will help millions quit smoking and prevent countless others from becoming addicted, sparing families across the country the devastating consequences of tobacco-related disease and death,” said Nancy Brown, CEO of the American Heart Association, in a statement. The Hill

Public health advocates said the policy has enormous potential if the Trump administration moves forward. Currently no limits exist, so setting any standard would be considered a big step forward.

“If it’s finalized, it would be a game changer because it would mean that kids who experiment with tobacco products, by smoking, aren’t headed for lifelong addiction,” said Erika Sward, assistant vice president for national advocacy at the american lung association

The FDA has been talking about plans to lower nicotine levels since the first Trump administration in 2018.

Under President Biden, the FDA in 2022 announced it was developing a proposed rule on the issue, to be published in May 2023.

More than a year and a half later, the proposal is finally almost ready to be published.

The FDA estimated in 2022 that reducing nicotine levels could prevent more than 33 million people from becoming regular smokers, that an additional 5 million smokers would quit within a year, and that 134 million life years would be gained class

Studies show that cigarettes with lower nicotine content reduce people’s dependence on nicotine and can help ease some of the cravings associated with withdrawal.

“Reducing nicotine levels to minimally addictive or non-addictive levels would decrease the likelihood that future generations of young people will become addicted to cigarettes and help more addicted smokers quit,” said FDA Commissioner Robert Califf. in 2022.

There will be no immediate changes to tobacco products. The proposal is only the first step.

It’s up to the Trump administration to write, issue and enforce a final rule, and it could be taken back.

“We see this as a very important step for public health, but we are clear-eyed and know that this is really the first step, because there will be multiple efforts to try to make the rule completely ineffective, to enforce it. return , cancel it, delay it. And we will monitor it every step of the way,” said Avenel Joseph, interim executive vice president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

There will also be significant opposition from the tobacco industry, which has helped scuttle numerous other potential regulations.

tobacco companies gave a lot on President-elect Trump’s campaign, and his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, worked as a tobacco lobbyist.

“Tobacco companies have been fighting all kinds of FDA regulations related to their products, and something that would actually make their products … less effective at being an addictive tool is going to be something that they’re all going to throw out. ounce of effort and money behind it to try and defeat,” Joseph added.

If the rule goes beyond the proposed stage, there are likely to be lawsuits from industry arguing that the government has overreached.

However, public health advocates said they were not writing off Trump moving forward with the rule.

Although it didn’t happen during his first term, the nicotine cut aligns with the “Make America Healthy Again” movement promoted by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s pick to be secretary of Health and Human Services humans

“As a nation, we’re having a discussion about chronic disease, and the Trump administration has certainly brought that to the forefront,” Sward said. “Tobacco use is number one when it comes to preventable chronic diseases and how Americans can be healthier.”

“Few actions would do more to fight chronic diseases like cancer and cardiovascular disease that greatly undermine health in the United States and that the incoming administration has indicated should be a priority to address,” Yolonda Richardson, President and CEO of the Tobacco Campaign. -Free Kids, he said in a statement to The Hill.

On the other hand, conservative free-market groups and law enforcement associations argue that the proposal would amount to a ban on cigarettes, overloading a black market of illicit products.

“For all intents and purposes, (the rule) will make cigarettes unregulated and throw them back into the illicit market through a ban,” said Diane Goldstein, executive director of the Enforcement Action Association of the Law

“Anytime you create a law where you ban something, you put law enforcement in charge of enforcing it. And … we’re seeing bans not working for their intended purposes of potentially reducing smoking “.

Goldstein pointed to the proliferation of illicit products that followed the FDA’s efforts to curb youth vaping.

“Prohibitions do not affect people’s behavior; they just go to the underground market to find what they need,” he said.



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