This Is How Many Premature Tobacco Deaths The FDA Thinks Their Newly Proposed Nicotine Reduction Policy Could Prevent

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has proposed a new nicotine reduction policy that, by their account, could prevent millions of premature deaths from tobacco over the next 80 years or so.

According to the FDA’s projection, if their proposed nicotine reduction policy, which would limit the amount of nicotine contained within cigarettes sold in the U.S., is implemented in the year 2020, over 8 million premature deaths from tobacco might be prevented by the year 2100.

Preventable Tobacco Deaths Graph — This is how many premature tobacco related deaths that the FDA thinks that their newly proposed nicotine control policy could prevent by the year 2100. (Credit: FDA)

Proposed Nicotine Control Policy

In order to thwart the addictive nature of today’s cigarettes, the FDA has proposed a new policy which would limit the maximum amount of nicotine that cigarettes can contain. The goal, according to the agency, is to limit the amount of nicotine contained within cigarettes to “minimally addictive” or “nonaddictive” levels, which would, hopefully, provide more people with the ability to choose whether or not to become regular cigarette smokers without the addictive nature of nicotine making the decision for them.

According to the 2015 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), 15% of adult Americans smoke cigarettes. And by the FDA’s account, while no tobacco products are actually safe, it’s the combustible ones that are the most harmful. In other words, if it’s lit and burned, it’s a combustible and it’s that much more harmful than its non-combustible counterparts and alternatives, such as vaping.

Each year, cigarette smoking related deaths account for more fatalities than alcohol, homicide, suicide, AIDS, car crashes, and illegal drug use combined.

Based on the FDA’s modeling, their proposed policy would result in approximately 5 million additional adult smokers quitting smoking within one year of implementation. By the year 2100, this would equate to over 33 million projected smokers avoided.

What do you think, should the FDA regulate the amount of nicotine contained within cigarettes and if so, to what degree?