Liz Szabo, Kaiser Health News Use Our Content
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[UPDATED at 12:20 p.m. ET March 15]
Cigarettes would comprise much less addictive nicotine — making them much less engaging to people who smoke — underneath an “unprecedented” plan the Food and Drug Administration announced Thursday.
Stripping cigarettes of all or most of their addictive energy could lead on 5 million adults to stop smoking inside a 12 months of the plan going into place and one other eight million to stop inside 5 years, in response to an evaluation printed Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine.
By 2100, the plan would stop 33 million people who find themselves now youngsters or younger adults from ever taking over tobacco, saving eight million lives.
The concept of lowering nicotine to non-addictive or “minimally addictive” ranges is the “cornerstone” of a complete tobacco management plan introduced in July by FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb.
“We’re taking a pivotal step today that could ultimately bring us closer to our vision of a world where combustible cigarettes would no longer create or sustain addiction — making it harder for future generations to become addicted in the first place and allowing more currently addicted smokers to quit or switch to potentially less harmful products,” Gottlieb mentioned.
Tobacco firms have fastidiously engineered their merchandise to be as addictive as attainable, mentioned Mitch Zeller, director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products. Combustible cigarettes are each the deadliest and probably the most environment friendly solution to ship nicotine, he mentioned.
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“Today’s advance notice is a request for information, not a proposed rule, and is the first step in a multiyear process,” mentioned Murray Garnick, government vice chairman and common counsel of Altria Group, the father or mother firm of Philip Morris USA. “FDA is seeking information about the scope of a nicotine standard, a threshold nicotine level, the nature of implementation, analytical testing methods, technical achievability, and the possible creation of an illicit market. … We plan to participate in every step of this process.”
“We look forward to working with FDA on its science-based review of nicotine levels in cigarettes and to build on the opportunity of establishing a regulatory framework that is based on tobacco harm reduction and recognizes the continuum of risk,” mentioned Dr. James Figlar, government vice chairman of analysis and improvement for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.
Anti-tobacco activists known as the transfer “extraordinary.”
Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, urged the FDA to maneuver rapidly and set a tough deadline for reducing nicotine ranges not simply in cigarettes, however in cigars and all flamable tobacco merchandise. Tobacco kills greater than 480,000 Americans a 12 months. Smoking additionally prices the nation $300 billion a 12 months in direct well being care and misplaced productiveness, Gottlieb mentioned.
“There is no other single action our country can take that would prevent more young people from smoking or save more lives,” Myers mentioned. “This is truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to greatly accelerate progress in reducing tobacco use — the nation’s No. 1 cause of preventable death — and bring us closer to eliminating the death and disease it causes.”
Congress gave the FDA the ability to control — however not ban — tobacco in 2009.
Smoking charges have declined from almost 21 % in 2005 to 15.5 % in 2016, in response to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The decline has been attributed partly to increased tobacco taxes and smoke-free legal guidelines that make it more durable for individuals to search out locations to gentle up.
The FDA is accepting public feedback on the proposal.
Myers urged the FDA to take further aggressive actions, reminiscent of requiring giant graphic well being warnings that cowl at the least half of cigarette packs. He mentioned the FDA must also ban menthol cigarettes and different flavored tobacco merchandise, which are sometimes extra engaging to youngsters as a result of they masks the tough style.
The FDA is contemplating numerous key questions on implementing the proposal. Those embrace: What potential most nicotine degree could be acceptable? Should a brand new normal be applied abruptly or steadily? Would limits on nicotine foster the expansion of a black market in high-nicotine cigarettes? Would people who smoke compensate for the lack of nicotine by smoking extra cigarettes?
The FDA will make two further bulletins about proposed tobacco guidelines, together with ones associated to flavors in cigarettes and one other on so-called premium cigars.
Given that the tobacco trade is prone to battle these proposals, it could possibly be eight to 10 years earlier than reduced-nicotine cigarettes develop into a actuality, mentioned Erika Sward, assistant vice chairman of nationwide advocacy for the American Lung Association.
The pace with which the FDA acts relies upon closely on “the political will of the administration,” Sward mentioned.
Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a nationwide well being coverage information service. It is an editorially unbiased program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which isn’t affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
