In the closing days of the Biden administration, the FDA has launched a proposal to radically reduce the amount of nicotine in cigarettes and other products by nearly 96%. It will be up to the Trump administration to determine the fate of the proposal.

Cigarettes (other than noncombusted cigarettes), cigarette tobacco, roll-your-own tobacco, cigars (including little cigars, cigarillos, and large cigars but excluding premium cigars), and pipe tobacco (other than waterpipe tobacco) are included in the proposal, which does not include vapes or other backbar products.

A prepublication draft is currently available for public viewing. It states: “We propose to limit nicotine yield by setting a maximum nicotine content level of 0.70 milligrams (mg) of nicotine per gram of total tobacco in these tobacco products. For comparison, the average nicotine content in the top 100 cigarette brands for 2017 is 17.2 mg/g of total tobacco.”

Data from flavor and menthol bans makes clear that these sorts of bans don’t reduce smoking and instead drive smokers to the illicit market.

“The very low nicotine proposal will have the opposite effect of what the Biden Administration is intending here,” states Anna Blom, director of government relations at NACS. “This policy essentially prohibits marketed products by altering them to an unrecognizable form. It will have the unintended and dire consequence of pushing current users to the illicit market.”

It is uncertain what the Trump administration will do with the proposal.

The public will have 240 days from when the proposed rule is published in the Federal Register, which is expected as early as tomorrow, to file comments. NACS plans to file comments on behalf of the entire convenience store industry. NACS will also set up a portal for members to file individual comments. Stay tuned to NACS Daily for more information.