The objective is to achieve sufficiently low nicotine levels to avoid the dependence of smokers. Nearly 500,000 deaths per year are tobacco in the country.
Le Monde with AFP
This is probably the start of a long showdown with the tobacco industry. The administration of Joe Biden announced, Tuesday, June 21, as part of a plan to combat cancer, wanting to considerably reduce the nicotine rate of cigarettes sold in the United States.
“Nicotine is highly addictive,” said Robert Califf, the head of the American Medicines Agency (FDA), who regulates the tobacco market and which must present his rules, in a statement. /p>
“Nicotine dependence in burned products is the main engine of sustained use of these products”, specifies the press release, which adds that “to make cigarettes and other tobacco products burned little or not addictive would help to Save lives “.
The initiative is part of a vast health program aimed at reducing the number of cancer deaths, which Mr. Biden has promised to reduce by 50 % over a period of twenty-five years. Cancer is the second cause of death in the United States after cardiovascular disease. Tobacco is, for its part, the main cause of avoidable mortality in the country, with 480,000 deaths related to tobacco recorded each year.
Cigarettes menthol in the viewfinder also
These new FDA proposals will be published and open to public comments. Each of these comments – potentially tens of thousands – will have to be studied, as required by the law.
The process should take years and could be delayed by disputes or overturned by a next administration favorable to the tobacco lobby.
The FDA, long favorable to a reduction in the rate of nicotine in cigarettes, had committed in April 2021 to prohibit the sale of menthol cigarettes, a measure which “will save hundreds of thousands of lives”. Menthol cigarettes are considered an entrance door to smoking, notably encouraging young people to start smoking, and are associated with greater addiction.
The government of Donald Trump had previously prohibited most of the aromas of electronic cigarettes, while exempting the menthol. And at the end of 2019, the Congress had adopted a law under 18 to 21 years the minimum age to buy tobacco and electronic cigarettes throughout the country.