Low-nicotine cigarettes promote quitting: study

A new study might help the push for regulations to limit nicotine in cigarettes. Smokers who switched to special low-nicotine ones wound up smoking less and were more likely to try to quit, researchers found.

The study only lasted six weeks, and researchers call the evidence preliminary. But they say it’s the first large study to show that slashing nicotine, perhaps below an addiction threshold, is safe and leads to less smoking.

In 2009, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration got the power to mandate lower nicotine levels, but has not yet done so.

“This, I think, provides support” for lowering nicotine, said one study leader, Dr. Neal Benowitz of the University of California, San Francisco.

Results are in the New England Journal of Medicine. The FDA and the National Institute on Drug Abuse paid for the study.

Smoking is a leading cause of heart disease and cancer. Tar and other substances inhaled through smoking make cigarettes deadly, but the nicotine is what makes them addictive.

Some earlier work suggests they might not be if nicotine was limited to roughly 0.7 milligrams per gram of tobacco. Most cigarettes contain around 15.8 mg per gram of tobacco. Since there are no low-nicotine cigarettes on the market, the government made special ones to test.

About 800 people who smoked five or more cigarettes a day and had no interest in quitting were assigned to smoke either their usual brand or an experimental type with nicotine ranging from a low of 0.4 mg to 15.8 mg.

All low-nicotine cigarette users reported fewer symptoms of nicotine dependence. Twice as many in the low-nicotine group than those smoking standard-strength cigarettes — 35 per cent versus 17 per cent — said they had tried quitting in the month after the study ended.