PLAN TO CUT CIG DEATHS

Nicotine cap eyed

The Biden administration on Tuesday said it wants to cap the amount of nicotine allowed in cigarettes as part of an effort to stem addiction and reduce smoking-related deaths.

The initiative — which is sure to face pushback from the tobacco industry — was

announced as part of the White House’s “unified agenda,” a list of planned federal regulatory actions released twice a year.

“This proposed rule is a tobacco product standard that would establish a maximum nicotine level in cigarettes and certain finished tobacco products,” the administration said.

Noting that “tobacco-related harms” primarily result from addiction, officials said the Food and Drug Administration “would take this action to reduce addictiveness to certain tobacco products, thus giving addicted users a greater ability to quit.”

It would also be a way to stop young people from getting hooked and becoming regular smokers, the officials said.

The FDA plans to officially publish the proposed rule in May 2023, according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the plans.

But the restriction likely would take years to go into effect. The FDA would have to issue the rule, take public comment — and withstand expected backlash and potential lawsuits from cigarette makers, according to the Journal.

The FDA has backed slashing nicotine content for several years, with former Commissioner Scott Gottlieb taking the first steps toward a new rule during the Trump administration. But that effort stalled when Gottlieb left in 2019.

Forcing tobacco companies to slash the nicotine content to “minimally or nonaddictive levels” will be a tough sell — but one that would be worth the wait, experts told The Washington Post.

“The most important, game-changing policies take a long time, but it is worth the wait because, at the end of the day, the only cigarettes that will be available won’t be capable of addicting future generations of kids,” said Mitch Zeller, retired director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products.

One critic compared the idea to alcohol prohibition, especially when combined with the FDA seeking a ban on menthol-flavored cigarettes.

“In practical terms, the proposal would ban most cigarettes currently sold in America,” Guy Bentley, at the libertarian Reason Foundation, told the paper.

The Biden administration’s Cancer Moonshot Initiative has set a goal of halving the cancer death rate over the next 50 years.

Some 480,000 deaths a year in the United States are blamed on

cigarettes.