Biden Administration Formally Proposes Plan to Reduce Nicotine in Cigarettes

The Biden administration on Wednesday officially proposed a limit on nicotine in cigarettes, CBS News reports.

The proposed rule will apply to traditional cigarettes, roll-your-own tobacco, cigars and pipe tobacco. Cigarette manufacturers will have two years to comply with the rule, after it is finalized.

According to a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) news release, the proposed rule would not ban cigarettes or any other tobacco products. The FDA is proposing to cap the nicotine level at 0.7 milligrams per gram of tobacco in cigarettes and certain other combusted tobacco products, which is significantly lower than the average concentration in these products on the market today.

Nicotine is the ingredient in cigarettes that first gets people addicted and keeps them smoking. Multiple studies have suggested that nicotine levels may have to be cut by up to 95% to make them minimally or non-addictive. Based on the FDA’s population health model, by the year 2100, this nicotine product standard could prevent approximately 48 million U.S. youth and young adults from starting smoking. The model also projects that more than 12.9 million people who smoke cigarettes would stop doing so one year after the rule becomes effective, including those who would completely switch to noncombusted tobacco products; this estimate increases to 19.5 million people within five years of the rule being finalized. Additionally, the model estimates that by the year 2060, the product standard would result in 1.8 million tobacco-related deaths averted, rising to 4.3 million deaths averted by the end of the century. Due to these lives saved and diseases averted, the estimated benefits of the proposed rule are more than $1.1 trillion per year over the first four decades.

CBS News notes that it will now be up to the returning Trump administration to decide if and how to finalize this measure.