The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is moving forward with a regulatory rule in the waning days of the Biden administration that would effectively ban cigarettes currently on the market in favor of products with lower levels of nicotine, which could end up boosting business of the cartels that operate. on the black market, an expert tells Fox Information Digital.
“Biden’s ban is a gift with a bow and balloons to organized crime cartels, whether they are cartels, Chinese organized crime or the Russian mafia. It’s going to keep America smoking and it’s going to make the streets more violent,” Wealthy Marianos, former deputy director of the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and current president of the Enforcement Agency. of the Tobacco Law, told Fox Information Digital about the proposal.
The FDA confirmed to Fox Digital on Monday that, as of Jan. 3, the tobacco product standard for the nicotine level of certain tobacco products had completed a regulatory review, but that the proposed rule has not yet been finalized.
“The proposed rule, ‘Tobacco Product Standard for the Nicotine Level of Certain Tobacco Products,’ appears in the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) ROCIS system as having completed regulatory review on January 3.” An FDA spokesperson told Fox Digital. “As the FDA has previously stated, a proposed product standard to establish a maximum nicotine level to reduce the addictiveness of cigarettes and other combusted tobacco products, when finalized, is estimated to be among the most important population-level actions.” impact on the history of US Tobacco Product Regulation. At this time, the FDA cannot provide further comment until it is published.”
Fox New Digital reached out to the White House regarding its concerns about the proposal if it were to go into effect, but did not receive a response.
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President Biden speaks in Washington, DC, USA, on Monday, December 16, 2024. The FDA confirmed to Fox Digital that as of January 3, the Tobacco Product Standard for the nicotine level of certain products tobacco had completed a regulatory review, but that the proposed rule had not yet been finalized. (Samuel Corum/Girl/Bloomberg via Getty Pictures)
Former President Barack Obama signed the National Tobacco Prevention and Tobacco Management Act in 2009, which gave the FDA the power to regulate tobacco products. In the years since, the agency has worked to reduce nicotine levels, including in July 2017 under the Trump administration, when then-FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb announced he would seek to require tobacco companies to sharply reduce nicotine. in cigarettes in an effort to help adults. smokers stop smoking.
In 2022, the FDA, under the Biden administration, announced plans for a proposed rule that would reduce nicotine levels to make them less or non-addictive.
“Reducing nicotine levels to minimally addictive or non-addictive levels would decrease the likelihood that future generations of young people will become addicted to cigarettes and help currently addicted smokers quit,” the FDA commissioner said at the time. , Robert Califf.
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Reducing nicotine levels in cigarettes and other commonly purchased tobacco products would open the floodgates to illicit trafficking of tobacco products into the U.S., Marianos told Fox Information Digital.
“This decision is being thrown out to the public without an ounce of thought and preparation. Nobody sat down with any authorities, nobody sat down with any doctors, nobody sat down with any regulators to find out, ‘Hey, look, what are they going on?’ the unintended ramifications of such a bad choice,’ and that’s what I’m going to call it, a bad choice,” Marianos said.
Woman lighting a cigarette. (Photo by JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP)
He explained that Mexican cartels are well positioned to smuggle illegal tobacco across the border, as they do with substances like fentanyl that have devastated communities across the United States, while Chinese criminal organizations have some of the best counterfeiting operations anywhere. They range from baby formula to cigarettes. , and Russian organized crime groups have their foot in the door in cities across the country, including bodegas and other stores selling tobacco products.
Marianos said criminal groups would likely quickly catch on to the proposal if it goes into effect and subsequently amplify their tobacco operations, which he said will serve as an economic boon for criminals.
Immigrants attempt to cross into the United States from Mexico at the border on December 17, 2023 in Jacumba Sizzling Springs, California. (Photo by Nick Ut/Getty Pictures)
Americans who want to buy cigarettes with higher levels of nicotine would have to go through illicit channels to obtain them, similar to buying “loose” cigarettes on the streets of New York, which would put the average American at greater legal risk and at the same time. time I would offer them cigarettes. that are not regulated and originate from foreign nations.
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Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers have already warned that tobacco trafficking in the United States represents a serious threat to national security and already has one foot in the door.
A couple smoking cigarettes. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Pictures)
“In 2015, the State Department cited the activity of terrorist groups and criminal networks that have used tobacco trafficking operations to finance other crimes, including ‘money laundering, bulk cash smuggling, and human trafficking,’ guns, drugs, antiques, diamonds, and counterfeit goods,’” Sens. Invoice Cassidy, R-La.; Mark Warner, D-Va.; Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida; Invoice Hagerty, R-Tennessee; and then-Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., wrote in a 2023 letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
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“Recently, public reports have also pointed out these financial links between Mexican transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) involved in narcotics and fentanyl trafficking, and these tobacco smuggling activities. “Mexican TCOs represent a serious threat to the national security and public health of the United States.”
Marianos added that in addition to the legal effect it has on the United States and its residents, reducing nicotine levels would also defeat the stated mission of getting smokers to quit and instead lead to increased smoking.
The FDA is moving forward with a regulatory rule in the waning days of the Biden administration that would effectively ban cigarettes currently on the market in favor of products with lower levels of nicotine. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Pictures)
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“You are going to generate more smoking. And I thought that’s what we’re trying to get away from, right? Smoking is bad. “I thought we are trying to do everything we can to get away from that and make the country safer.” “Well, if nicotine levels are reduced, people will smoke more. That is proven. “All you have to do is drive here in DC and see, you know, the workers on their smoke break,” he said, saying they work. Productivity will even decline as people smoke more. Breaks in alleys to get your nicotine fix.
The Biden administration previously attempted to ban menthol cigarettes entirely, in what was described as a “critical” piece of President Biden’s Most Cancers Moonshot initiative, but announced last year that it would abruptly delay such regulations when the public condemned the move. . A handful of groups argued that the menthol ban unfairly targeted minority communities, while others argued that the ban would open the floodgates to illicit menthol sales.
