The FDA’s Mitch Zeller & Dr. Scott Gottlieb have been published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
“A Nicotine-Focused Framework for Public Health”
While claiming nicotine is the center of “addiction” and the reduction of nicotine as the answer to reduce tobacco use… their seemingly contrived objective is in part below:
“The agency’s new tobacco strategy has two primary parts: reducing the addictiveness of combustible cigarettes while recognizing and clarifying the role that potentially less harmful tobacco products could play in improving public health. We must also work toward a greater role for medicinal nicotine and other therapeutic products in helping smokers to quit and remain nonsmokers.”
While I am completely opposed to the framing of the nicotine addiction theory without tobacco, there were two other parts I’m not convinced quite yet that we’re on the right path; bold is my emphasis:
- “reducing the addictiveness of combustible cigarettes”
- “We must also work toward a greater role for medicinal nicotine and other therapeutic products in helping smokers to quit and remain nonsmokers.”
- The focus on “nicotine” is, in my eyes, a subliminal way to keep the definition of e-liquid as tobacco, manipulate e-cigarette products as tobacco, and collect unjust & undue tax – on a product that is not addictive without tobacco, and not tobacco.
- The teetering on medicinal nicotine & other therapeutic products gives a direct odor of pharmaceutical product and control, something they’ve already had and failed miserably with.
I predicted this In March of 2016:
Keep smoking, we’ll just help you lower your nicotine.
This from UCSF in 2015
Low-Nicotine Cigarettes Fail to Sway Smokers
Issues:
Clive Bates & Carrie Wade:
Reducing nicotine in cigarettes raises all sorts of problems
#flashback to 2007 @newsweek article on low nicotine. Now @fda says it's ok to mandate v low nicotine?https://t.co/zcSbuJdCA6
— Patricia I.Kovacevic (@patriciakova) August 17, 2017
That article is here:
The Myth of ‘Light’ Cigarettes
Brad Rodu on Nicotine reduction:
Negligible Evidence of Radical Nicotine Reduction Benefit
Brad Rodu on tar, not nicotine:
Low-Tar Cigarettes Had Merit, Said American Cancer Society; So Do E-Cigarettes
Paul Barnes
Always a great read:
Harm Reduction, Removing the Least Harmful Component
On a positive note
The publication states:
Nicotine, though not benign, is not directly responsible for the tobacco-caused cancer, lung disease, and heart disease that kill hundreds of thousands of Americans each year.
Excellent….and goes on to add
…within a landscape including other, noncombustible products such as e-cigarettes, represents a promising foundation for a comprehensive approach to tobacco harm reduction. In working toward this vision, the FDA is committed to striking an appropriate balance between protecting the public and fostering innovation in less harmful nicotine delivery.
That’s the first positive thing I’ve heard in some time from the government:
Tobacco Harm Reduction.
Are there other chemicals that cause addiction in tobacco?
MAIO’s?
Are There Other Chemicals That May Contribute to Tobacco Addiction?
In the meantime, I’ll tweet (and blog) with one eye open.
Here’s the article in full:
A Nicotine-Focused Framework for Public Health
Added 12/30/17:
A rehash of the same rhetoric in the JAMA:
Will the FDA’s New Tobacco Strategy Be a Game Changer?
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Kevin
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