The White House is moving to establish a maximum nicotine level in tobacco products.
The Biden administration signaled that a proposed rule is being developed, which will establish the maximum nicotine level that can be in cigarettes and other tobacco products. It will essentially lower the amount of nicotine in products that are available in the United States.
No other administration has taken a similar step before. This step is one that public health experts have called for, and say that it will be transformative if it is enacted.
Public health experts say that this marks the first time there has been a serious discussion on how to tackle tobacco in a way that is transformative.
The new initiative comes as a part of the administration’s “unified agenda,” which is released twice a year. It contains a set of planned federal regulatory actions.
The rule says that the effort to lower nicotine in tobacco products would reduce addiction levels to smoking, and also give people a better chance at quitting. It is expected as well that reduced nicotine levels would also prevent people from starting to smoke in the first place, as addiction levels would be decreased.
Studies show that when the nicotine content of cigarettes is reduced, people don’t seem to smoke more to compensate for the missing nicotine.
“Nicotine is powerfully addictive,” FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf said in a statement issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
”Lowering nicotine levels to minimally addictive or non-addictive levels would decrease the likelihood that future generations of young people become addicted to cigarettes and help more currently addicted smokers to quit,” Califf said.
Nicotine is the chemical that is highly addictive in tobacco products. It changes the way the brain works and makes people crave more of it.
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