Cigarettes Set to Get Weaker Nicotine Punch from FDA and Biden

You have to give it up to the Biden Administration for not giving up on America's health because today, the FDA has released details of a proposed rule that would limit nicotine levels to 0.7 milligrams per gram of tobacco in cigarettes and certain combusted tobacco products - significantly lower than current market levels. Their goal? Save lives by reducing smoking-related diseases and deaths while hopefully preventing up to 16 million people from becoming addicted to smoking by 2060.

This comes after the administration's earlier and unsuccessful attempt to ban menthol cigarettes, promptly delayed in 2024 after public criticism and concerns about targeting minority communities.

Now, for all those who love the pleasant, refreshing taste (and burn) of your cigarettes of old, you better smoke them while you got them because, if finalized,  the US would become the first country globally to implement such restrictions. Obviously, criticisms and concerns are flooding in, with critics believing it would benefit organized crime cartels and black markets, lead to unregulated cigarette sales, and likely lead willing buyers to seek higher nicotine products through shadier channels than one's 7-11.

Whether this will sway new and old smokers is speculative at best, but Biden's timing is curious for a "struggling" industry and sector. In US markets, cigarette sales declined by approximately 8% in Q3 2023. Major manufacturers like Philip Morris International saw cigarette shipment volume fall from 915 billion units in 2011 to 613 billion in 2023. Please don't start to feel bad for our smokey friends, though, because the global cigarette market is valued at around $720.44 billion, whereas in 2023, it was sitting at $886.09 billion.

This decline may be generational, as reports indicate that only 6% of Gen Z smoke, while Millennials had their peak smoking rate at 28.5% during their youth