Biden Admin Proposes New Limit on Nicotine Levels in Tobacco Products

What’s the story?

• The Biden administration’s budget office announced plans last week to create a maximum nicotine level in cigarettes and other tobacco products. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposal would reduce nicotine content to minimal or non-addictive levels. 
• The new rule is expected to take effect in May 2023, with the goal of helping addicts quit using tobacco and preventing youth from becoming tobacco users. Tobacco use by youth is rising, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The FDA estimated that such a policy would prevent over 33 million young people from becoming regular smokers. 
• Cigarette smoking and exposure to tobacco cause around 480,000 premature deaths each year in the U.S., and health officials have long said this is the number one cause of premature, preventable deaths. 
• This action would also help achieve the goal of the Biden Administration’s Cancer Moonshot project to eradicate cancer in the United States. 

Backlash from tobacco companies 

• Cigarette and tobacco companies responded to this proposal by saying tobacco harm reduction would be a better strategy. 
• Companies suggest pushing smokers towards products like e-cigarettes, which they said would be more helpful than reducing nicotine in traditional cigarettes. 
• While the rule could take effect as early as May 2023, experts say it may take years before the new rule will take effect because of legal challenges from the tobacco industry. 

What’re they saying?

• The recently retired director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, Mitch Zeller, said: 

“The most important, game-changing policies take a long time, but it is worth the wait because, at the end of the day, the only cigarettes that will be available won’t be capable of addicting future generations of kids.”

• Zeller is a longtime advocate of reducing nicotine in cigarettes. The FDA has supported reducing nicotine levels in cigarettes for years, but Biden’s administration is the first to fully support the proposal.  
• Altria, one of America’s largest tobacco companies, said:

“We believe tobacco harm reduction is a better path forward. The focus should be less on taking products away from adult smokers and more on providing them a robust marketplace of reduced harm FDA-authorized smoke-free products.”

What do you think? Do you support the proposal to reduce nicotine levels in tobacco products? 

-Jamie Epstein

(Photo credit: iStock/mariusFM77)