The FDA has announced plans to regulate the level of nicotine contained in cigarettes.
Because nicotine lives at the core of both the problem and the solution to the question of addiction, addressing the addictive levels of nicotine in combustible cigarettes must be part of the FDA’s strategy for addressing the devastating, addiction crisis that is threatening American families,” FDA’s commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in a statement.
He said the cornerstone to the agency’s “new and more comprehensive” approach to effective tobacco regulation was to look at ways to reduce nicotine levels in cigarettes so that they are “minimally or non-addictive”.
The agency also announced it would delay its safety review of e-cigarettes currently on the market.
“Our approach to nicotine must be accompanied by a firm foundation of rules and standards for newly-regulated products. To be successful all of these steps must be done in concert and not in isolation,” Gottlieb said.