Will US action to limit nicotine in cigarettes bring major benefits?
In a June 8th keynote address at the 2022 American Thoracic Society Conference in San Francisco, Dr. Michael Fiore, founder and director of the University of Wisconsin Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention, discussed the achievable goal of eliminating all tobacco product use in the US by 2030.
The main take-home message was that if we reduce nicotine to essentially nothing in these products, they will go away. And he included a very strong statement about e-cigarettes and vaping products, in particular, those targeting children. He explained that if nicotine is introduced to people under 17 years of age through e-cigarettes, this will create a generation of people who are addicted to nicotine.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2793358
Walter K. American Thoracic Society 2022 Conference Highlights. June 8, 2022. JAMA. 2022;327(24):2383-2384.
Another recent statement on reducing nicotine in cigarettes by Mitch Zeller, past director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, indicates similar anticipated consequences: ““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.”
Quote from: Malone P. FDA bans Juul vaping products and seeks to slash nicotine in cigarettes. DC Medical Malpractice and Patient Safety Blog. 7 July 2022
Comment: It is important to note that eliminating tobacco use through reducing nicotine in tobacco products is the hope, not some accommodation to the use of e-cigarettes for supposed cessation benefits.
Stephen Hamann
