About 13.7 percent of all American adults are currently cigarette smokers. (Representative)
Washington:
President Joe Biden’s administration is set to announce a new policy that requires cigarette producers to reduce nicotine to non-addictive levels, US media reported on Tuesday, a move that could have implications for the tobacco industry. There would be a mighty blow.
If this policy is successful, millions of lives could be saved by the end of the century, and a future could be shaped where cigarettes are no longer responsible for addiction and debilitating disease.
The Washington Post, quoting a person familiar with the matter, said the initiative could be announced on Tuesday.
The Wall Street Journal said it would require the Food and Drug Administration to develop and then publish a rule that could be challenged by the industry, which previously reported on the issue.
The entire effort is expected to take several years and may be delayed or derailed by litigation, or may be rendered inconsistent with its objectives by future administrations.
Nicotine is the “feel good” chemical that adds to millions of tobacco products. Thousands of other chemicals present in tobacco and its smoke are responsible for cancer, heart disease, stroke, lung disease, diabetes and other diseases.
Although smoking is less prevalent in the United States than in Europe and has been declining over the years, it is still responsible for 480,000 deaths a year in the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
According to CDC data, about 13.7 percent of all American adults are currently cigarette smokers.
Reducing the amount of nicotine in cigarettes has been a topic of discussion among US officials for years.
Former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb announced in 2017 that he wanted to move forward on the issue, and funded a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2018 that found “low-nicotine cigarettes versus standard- Nicotine cigarettes reduced nicotine exposure and dependence. Number of cigarettes smoked.”
The FDA found that if the policy is implemented in 2020, it would prevent 8 million premature deaths from tobacco by 2100.
The tobacco industry dismissed the findings, saying people would actually smoke more.
Biden has made the “cancer moonshot” the centerpiece of his agenda and the nicotine-reduction policy would fit within his goals at the lowest cost.
According to the CDC, the total economic cost of smoking is more than $300 billion per year, including more than $225 billion in direct medical care for adults, and more than $156 billion in premature death and productivity from exposure to secondhand smoke. loss is included.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)