Every year, globally, smoking causes the death of over 8 millions of people: in the future, this number could undergo a significant change. For some time now the World Health Organization (WHO) offers guidelines anti-smoking and plans to reduce nicotine levels in cigarettes: apparently, someone has started to answer the call and has done so with a draconian proposal.
La Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the US government agency that regulates food and drug products, has launched a proposal that could revolutionize the world of tobacco. The plan is ambitious: to drastically reduce the levels of nicotine in cigarettes to the point of making them virtually incapable of creating dependence.
The numbers of the war on nicotine
Currently, cigarettes contain an average of 11,9 to 14,5 milligrams of nicotine, depending on the brand. The FDA proposal aims to reduce this amount to just 0,7 milligrams. As explained Brian King, director of the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products:
By reducing the nicotine level in cigarettes and other combusted tobacco products to such a low level that it no longer creates or maintains addiction, the cycle of exposure to these toxic chemicals can be broken.
The real problem of addiction
Nicotine itself is not responsible for most of the harmful effects of smoking (those come from burning tobacco) but it is incredibly “seductive.” As the former acting director of the CDC explains, Richard Besser:
It is tar, and everything that surrounds nicotine, that poses the greatest risk to people's health. But it is nicotine that creates addiction.
The impact on public health
The proposed limit would apply to traditional cigarettes, cigarette tobacco, rolling tobacco, most cigars, and pipe tobacco. Currently, the rule would not affect e-cigarettes, noncombustible cigarettes, and smokeless tobacco products such as snus and chewing tobacco.
According to FDA estimates, limiting nicotine levels to 0,7 milligrams per gram of tobacco could prevent 1,8 million tobacco-related deaths by 2060 and 4,3 million by the end of the century. A potentially revolutionary impact on American public health. What if such a measure were applied on a global scale?
Political uncertainties
There is no guarantee that the proposal will pass in its current form, or at all. That decision will be up to the incoming Trump administration in September. The newly elected president he promised “Make America Healthy Again,” (but there are also rumors of possible cuts to the FDA). In other words, we’ll see if the plan holds up.
At any rate Robert Calif, FDA Commissioner, strongly supports the initiative:
If there is a goal of making America healthy again, I can't imagine anything more important to accomplish than that.
Stop Nicotine, Industry Resistance (and the Open Debate)
As expected, the tobacco industry is not welcoming this proposal. The economic interests at stake are enormous, and strong opposition from the big companies in the sector is to be expected.
If passed, this proposal would mark a turning point in the history of tobacco. Cigarettes as we know them today could become a thing of the past. Only the “cool factor” (as seen in the movies) would remain, but without the addiction that has made smoking one of the biggest public health problems in modern history.
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