FDA’s new antismoking policy

The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday made a decision of rare importance, concerning not a pandemic illness but the country’s leading cause of preventable death: smoking. It is crucial the White House stick up for what would be the FDA’s most assertive antismoking policy ever — one that will inevitably meet severe resistance.

The agency is preparing a rule that would mandate that tobacco companies dramatically cut the amount of nicotine in cigarettes sold in the United States, rendering their deadly products minimally or not-at-all addictive. This move has long been anticipated: Congress in 2009 gave the FDA broad powers to regulate tobacco products. The agency started exploring this policy in 2017, and it should have used its authorities fully before now. It must move quickly. About half a million Americans a year die of smoking-related illnesses; any further delay would mean more unnecessary suffering and death.

The idea is to make cigarettes unattractive to people addicted to nicotine and to encourage them to get their fix in less dangerous ways — or simply to quit. While highly addictive, nicotine does not damage people’s bodies the way other chemicals in cigarette smoke do. If smokers could not extract large amounts of nicotine from cigarettes, they would turn to vaping or smoking-cessation products such as nicotine gum or patches.