6 ms·

Tobacco companies forced to reduce nicotine in cigarettes until non-addictive

26 points by crhulls 4y ago

bmau5 4y ago
Have these same regulations been applied to vaporizers? Anecdotally it seems these have taken over the majority of nicotine consumption in the US (along with Zyn pouches).
- WalterGR 4y ago
  > Anecdotally it seems these have taken over the majority of nicotine consumption in the US Cigarettes have not. The drop in cigarette-smoking rate been basically linear. Through 2018: https://www.lung.org/research/trends-in-lung-disease/tobacco-trends-brief/overall-tobacco-trends https://www.lung.org/research/trends-in-lung-disease/tobacco... Through 2020: https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/adult_data/cig_smoking/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/adul...
- brutusborn 4y ago
  They don't exist yet so they can't have been applied to vaporizers.
throwaway193948 4y ago
dleslie 4y ago
I wonder if we should expect similar regulation, within my lifetime, for alcohol and sugary foods? Both are strongly associated with a variety of common diseases, and alcohol itself is seemingly associated with numerous common cancers.
- h2odragon 4y ago
  Your body isn't yours; why should the State allow you to wreck it with poor life choices? The rest of society needs you healthy and consuming, Citizen!
  - prirun 4y ago
    Your body is yours, and you are free to wreck it. However, society shouldn't have to pay for your bad behavior via higher health insurance premiums. I'm all for legalizing recreational drugs, including meth, heroin, whatever. Go to a drug or liquor store, show an ID, and get whatever you want. We do it with alcohol, why not drugs? But people who decide to get hooked on shit that's bad for your body - drugs, cigarettes, alcohol, sugar/snacks - should have to pay all their health costs out of pocket, other than X fixed months of health counseling to help them get unhooked. Is it terrible that tobacco companies get people hooked? Of course it is. But kids (and adults) are not completely stupid. They know that smoking and vaping are not good for ones health, but they do it anyway. Whatever regulations the government creates will somehow get bypassed by companies (add a different ingredient that is addictive other than nicotine), and some people are going to continue to do things that they know are bad for their health, because they have no discipline and are irresponsible. Here's a thought: force the cigarette companies to pay for the health insurance of people who smoke, the snack and soft drink companies pay for the people who are obese, and allow pharmaceutical companies to manufacture meth, heroin, cocaine, etc and sell it in liquor stores, but they also have to pay health insurance for their "users", I mean "customers". It's still dumb because all of these put unnecessary strain on the health system, but at least society isn't paying for it.
    - 12ian34 4y ago
      > People who decide to get hooked on shit that's bad for your body... should have to pay all their health costs out of pocket. What about those driven into those situations at young ages when the state should have been looking after them?
RandomWorker 4y ago
This sounds absolutely bonkers, tobacco plant will quickly be illegally cultivated. Without the nicotine it will also be harder to cultivate and make cigarettes more costly.
runagate 4y ago
Which part of the US Constitution gives Biden that power?
- faeriechangling 4y ago
  If I had to bet, the commerce clause.
- goodguyamercunt 4y ago
  [dead]
- bhenchoddang 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - bl0rg 4y ago
    One is allowed to hold right-wing opinions.
brutusborn 4y ago
I am skeptical of a "non-addictive" cigarette. My experience with tapering nicotine vape concentration is that if the puffs don't satisfy, one will tend to just puff more. I couldn't find Biden's proposal, and later realized the report is based on insider knowledge. I doubt there is any benefit to dictating nicotine levels, or any basis for a theoretical benefit.
- hiram112 4y ago
  Bingo. When I smoked cigs, I'd end up smoking half as many if I had access to a really strong brand e.g. Marlboro Reds or Newports. Likewise, I'd go through a pack of light cigarettes twice as fast. It wasn't conscious - my brain wanted its set dose of nicotine. When I did quit eventually with nicotine gum, I gradually lowered the dose over the course or a month or two, but it was a very conscious process, and I absolutely had to discipline myself to push through the cravings. All this will accomplish is forcing mostly poorer people to purchase more cigarettes than they currently do in order to get the same fix they're accustomed to.
  - eurasiantiger 4y ago
    It’s not just the nicotine; rather, nicotine is a weak and essentially non-reinforcing stimulant unless it is administered with monoamine oxidase inhibitors, such as those found in tobacco smoke and coffee, which greatly potentiate nicotine’s effects and make it strongly reinforcing.
chaimanmeow 4y ago
weird. It isn't the nicotine that's harmful in cigs but the combustion products like tar. So smokers would be forced to burn far more cigs to get the same nootropic nicotine hit that they normally get from one cig.
- archerx 4y ago
  Sounds like good news for the tobacco companies.
Proven 4y ago
Veen 4y ago
So the goal is to force smokers to increase the number of cigarettes they smoke to achieve the same effect. A 20-a-day smoker may now have to smoke 80-a-day to satisfy their craving, massively increasing their exposure to carcinogens and increasing their risk of COPD. Either that or switch to vaping, which might be the real intent.
- the_only_law 4y ago
  Funny enough, I thought vaping would save me tons of money, but I find myself burning through coils/juice super fast. OTOH I feel like I'm also consuming a ton more nicotine with vapes than with cigarettes.
eurasiantiger 4y ago
This is a non-effective policy. There’s a study which clearly shows that abstinent smokers prefer smoking denicotinized cigarettes over self-administered (push-button) intravenous nicotine.
- brutusborn 4y ago
  A link to the study for any like me who found this fascinating. Thanks for sharing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4154143/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4154143/ Makes me wonder if we could make vapes more effective at smoking cessation by adding MAOI as well as nicotine.
  - eurasiantiger 4y ago
    They are already very effective at smoking cessation, and the inclusion of MAOIs could make it more difficult to stop vaping.
    - brutusborn 4y ago
      Yeah you're probably right, I'm just being greedy. Vaping Nicotine never hit me the same as smoking, but that's probably a good thing.
peanut_worm 4y ago
Wouldn’t that just generate more sales for tobacco companies and make current smokers smoke more cigarettes
afarviral 4y ago
A better policy is to increase the age restriction by a year every year! The younger generation will never be entitled to the stuff while those already addicted arent forced to smoke more or forced to stop. Sure you can grow your own but in my experience theres better drugs that are less fiddly to produce and have less consequences.
- paskozdilar 4y ago
  I don't think more restrictions would do anything except boost the black market. Drugs are illegal, yet the younger generation enjoys them more then ever.
- brutusborn 4y ago
  There are no current alternatives to nicotine that tickle the brain quite like it. But I'd love to be proven wrong!

26 points by crhulls 4y ago

Have these same regulations been applied to vaporizers? Anecdotally it seems these have taken over the majority of nicotine consumption in the US (along with Zyn pouches).

WalterGR 4y ago
> Anecdotally it seems these have taken over the majority of nicotine consumption in the US Cigarettes have not. The drop in cigarette-smoking rate been basically linear. Through 2018: https://www.lung.org/research/trends-in-lung-disease/tobacco-trends-brief/overall-tobacco-trends https://www.lung.org/research/trends-in-lung-disease/tobacco... Through 2020: https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/adult_data/cig_smoking/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/adul...
brutusborn 4y ago
They don't exist yet so they can't have been applied to vaporizers.

throwaway193948 4y ago

dleslie 4y ago

I wonder if we should expect similar regulation, within my lifetime, for alcohol and sugary foods? Both are strongly associated with a variety of common diseases, and alcohol itself is seemingly associated with numerous common cancers.

h2odragon 4y ago
Your body isn't yours; why should the State allow you to wreck it with poor life choices? The rest of society needs you healthy and consuming, Citizen!
- prirun 4y ago
  Your body is yours, and you are free to wreck it. However, society shouldn't have to pay for your bad behavior via higher health insurance premiums. I'm all for legalizing recreational drugs, including meth, heroin, whatever. Go to a drug or liquor store, show an ID, and get whatever you want. We do it with alcohol, why not drugs? But people who decide to get hooked on shit that's bad for your body - drugs, cigarettes, alcohol, sugar/snacks - should have to pay all their health costs out of pocket, other than X fixed months of health counseling to help them get unhooked. Is it terrible that tobacco companies get people hooked? Of course it is. But kids (and adults) are not completely stupid. They know that smoking and vaping are not good for ones health, but they do it anyway. Whatever regulations the government creates will somehow get bypassed by companies (add a different ingredient that is addictive other than nicotine), and some people are going to continue to do things that they know are bad for their health, because they have no discipline and are irresponsible. Here's a thought: force the cigarette companies to pay for the health insurance of people who smoke, the snack and soft drink companies pay for the people who are obese, and allow pharmaceutical companies to manufacture meth, heroin, cocaine, etc and sell it in liquor stores, but they also have to pay health insurance for their "users", I mean "customers". It's still dumb because all of these put unnecessary strain on the health system, but at least society isn't paying for it.
  - 12ian34 4y ago
    > People who decide to get hooked on shit that's bad for your body... should have to pay all their health costs out of pocket. What about those driven into those situations at young ages when the state should have been looking after them?

RandomWorker 4y ago

This sounds absolutely bonkers, tobacco plant will quickly be illegally cultivated. Without the nicotine it will also be harder to cultivate and make cigarettes more costly.

runagate 4y ago

Which part of the US Constitution gives Biden that power?

faeriechangling 4y ago
If I had to bet, the commerce clause.
goodguyamercunt 4y ago
[dead]
bhenchoddang 4y ago
[flagged]
- bl0rg 4y ago
  One is allowed to hold right-wing opinions.

brutusborn 4y ago

I am skeptical of a "non-addictive" cigarette. My experience with tapering nicotine vape concentration is that if the puffs don't satisfy, one will tend to just puff more. I couldn't find Biden's proposal, and later realized the report is based on insider knowledge. I doubt there is any benefit to dictating nicotine levels, or any basis for a theoretical benefit.

hiram112 4y ago
Bingo. When I smoked cigs, I'd end up smoking half as many if I had access to a really strong brand e.g. Marlboro Reds or Newports. Likewise, I'd go through a pack of light cigarettes twice as fast. It wasn't conscious - my brain wanted its set dose of nicotine. When I did quit eventually with nicotine gum, I gradually lowered the dose over the course or a month or two, but it was a very conscious process, and I absolutely had to discipline myself to push through the cravings. All this will accomplish is forcing mostly poorer people to purchase more cigarettes than they currently do in order to get the same fix they're accustomed to.
- eurasiantiger 4y ago
  It’s not just the nicotine; rather, nicotine is a weak and essentially non-reinforcing stimulant unless it is administered with monoamine oxidase inhibitors, such as those found in tobacco smoke and coffee, which greatly potentiate nicotine’s effects and make it strongly reinforcing.

chaimanmeow 4y ago

weird. It isn't the nicotine that's harmful in cigs but the combustion products like tar. So smokers would be forced to burn far more cigs to get the same nootropic nicotine hit that they normally get from one cig.

archerx 4y ago
Sounds like good news for the tobacco companies.

Proven 4y ago

Veen 4y ago

So the goal is to force smokers to increase the number of cigarettes they smoke to achieve the same effect. A 20-a-day smoker may now have to smoke 80-a-day to satisfy their craving, massively increasing their exposure to carcinogens and increasing their risk of COPD. Either that or switch to vaping, which might be the real intent.

the_only_law 4y ago
Funny enough, I thought vaping would save me tons of money, but I find myself burning through coils/juice super fast. OTOH I feel like I'm also consuming a ton more nicotine with vapes than with cigarettes.

eurasiantiger 4y ago

This is a non-effective policy. There’s a study which clearly shows that abstinent smokers prefer smoking denicotinized cigarettes over self-administered (push-button) intravenous nicotine.

brutusborn 4y ago
A link to the study for any like me who found this fascinating. Thanks for sharing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4154143/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4154143/ Makes me wonder if we could make vapes more effective at smoking cessation by adding MAOI as well as nicotine.
- eurasiantiger 4y ago
  They are already very effective at smoking cessation, and the inclusion of MAOIs could make it more difficult to stop vaping.
  - brutusborn 4y ago
    Yeah you're probably right, I'm just being greedy. Vaping Nicotine never hit me the same as smoking, but that's probably a good thing.

peanut_worm 4y ago

Wouldn’t that just generate more sales for tobacco companies and make current smokers smoke more cigarettes

afarviral 4y ago

A better policy is to increase the age restriction by a year every year! The younger generation will never be entitled to the stuff while those already addicted arent forced to smoke more or forced to stop. Sure you can grow your own but in my experience theres better drugs that are less fiddly to produce and have less consequences.

paskozdilar 4y ago
I don't think more restrictions would do anything except boost the black market. Drugs are illegal, yet the younger generation enjoys them more then ever.
brutusborn 4y ago
There are no current alternatives to nicotine that tickle the brain quite like it. But I'd love to be proven wrong!