Rules to reduce nicotine in cigarettes are back on the agenda.
On June 21, the United States Federal government announced its intention to develop a rule requiring deeply reduced nicotine levels in cigarettes on sale in the United States. es are back on the agenda.
This idea has been in circulation since first proposed in 1994 and was given a new lease of life in the FDA comprehensive plan in 2017. In late 2021, New Zealand adopted this policy and has committed to introducing legislation this year. The zombie policy is back, and it walks among us. Despite the warped logic of taking out the relatively benign nicotine and leaving the very harmful tar, despite the obvious practical problems of mounting a de facto cigarette prohibition at this scale, and despite the weird ethics of encouraging people to switch from one smoking product to another smoking product, this idea just will not die. How should we consider this proposal from a tobacco market transformation perspective?
First, let us consider how this would work in practice. Regulators would introduce a rule requiring that cigarettes must have a very low nicotine level in the tobacco, say 0.4 mg per gram of tobacco compared to typically 16mg per gram—a 40-fold reduction. The level would be so low that nicotine could not play a meaningful role in the smoking experience, and “compensation” to obtain a satisfactory nicotine dose by puffing harder would not be possible.
Tobacco Reporter – 2022-06-21.
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