FDA moves to limit nicotine in cigarettes, some other tobacco
WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration unveiled a proposal on Wednesday to limit the amount of nicotine allowed in cigarettes and some other combustible tobacco products, a final step for the agency before the Trump administration takes over next week.
The FDA first announced it would pursue regulatory changes to maximum nicotine levels in combustible smoking products in 2022 in an effort to reduce the public health effects related to addiction and minimize youth uptake.
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The agency is seeking public comment on the rule, but the proposal’s fate is unclear given the coming change in administration.
“Multiple administrations have acknowledged the immense opportunity that a proposal of this kind offers to address the burden of tobacco-related disease,” said FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf. “I hope we can all agree that significantly reducing the leading cause of preventable death and disease in the U.S. is an admirable goal we should all work toward.”
The rule released Wednesday would limit the maximum nicotine in certain combustible tobacco products to 0.70 milligrams per gram of tobacco. The average nicotine content in the 100 most popular cigarette brands in 2017, the FDA notes, is 17.2 mg per gram of tobacco.
Each year, according to the U.S. Surgeon General, more than 490,000 people die in the U.S. from a smoking-related disease, and about 28 million adults and 380,000 youth currently smoke cigarettes.
The rule states that while cigarettes cause the “largest amount of harm to public health in the United States,” limiting the proposal to only cigarettes could result in users shifting to other similar combusted tobacco products, which would reduce the efficacy of the nicotine standard.
