The Food and Drug Administration is taking the first step down a regulatory road that ends with the prohibition of what we know as the modern-day cigarette. A public consultation on slashing nicotine in cigarettes to minimally addictive or non-addictive levels marks the latest development in FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb's plan to fundamentally reevaluate society's relationship with nicotine.
The policy logic is simple. If the substance that hooks and keeps people smoking, namely nicotine, can be cut to non-addictive levels, smokers will either quit or switch to safer nicotine delivery systems such as e-cigarettes. An FDA funded study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) claims the policy will result in an additional 5 million smokers quitting in the first year alone.
