As someone who is addicted to nicotine gum, I think this is a genius policy. Nicotine is an intensely habit forming drug. You smoke for the nicotine, whether

As someone who is addicted to nicotine gum, I think this is a genius policy. Nicotine is an intensely habit forming drug. You smoke for the nicotine, whether you realize it or not. Take it out, and you've lost the primary reason you smoke: the true sweetness of all cigarettes is due to one flavor, just like the true sweetness of all wine is due to one flavor. If you eliminate nicotine from legal cigarettes, the vast majority of smokers will stop smoking. Sure, maybe after a few binge sessions where they desperately and fruitlessly seek that hit. I think the fraction of smokers who will sustain a smoking addiction via black market cigarettes is less than 10%. To maintain a smoking addiction, you need to buy a lot of cigarettes. Few have sufficiently frequent access to black markets to sustain it. And yes, I'm chewing that damn gum as I write this;) To clarify, I don't advocate banning nicotine. I advocate banning nicotine delivered via toxic trash-heap. The same way I'd advocate banning alcohol mixed with methanol, if that was a super popular drink.