The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is moving forward with a regulatory rule in The final days of the Biden administration That would effectively ban cigarettes currently on the market in favor of products with lower nicotine levels, which could ultimately boost the business of cartels operating on the black market, one expert told Fox News Digital.
He added: “The ban imposed by Biden is like a gift with a bow and balloons to him Organized crime gangs With it, whether it is gangs, Chinese organized crime, or the Russian mafia. “It will keep Americas smokers, and it will make the streets more violent,” Rich Marianos, former assistant director of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and current head of the Tobacco Law Enforcement Network, told Fox News. Digital for suggestion.
The FDA confirmed to Fox Digital on Monday that as of January 3, the Tobacco Products Standard for nicotine level of certain tobacco products has completed a regulatory review, but the proposed rule has not yet been finalized.
“The proposed rule, the Tobacco Products Standard for the Level of Nicotine in 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 said, the proposed product standard for determining the maximum nicotine level to reduce addiction to cigarettes and certain other types of tobacco Burnt tobacco productsWhen completed, it is estimated to be among the most impactful population-level measures in the history of tobacco product regulation in the United States. “At this time, the FDA is unable to provide any additional comment until publication.”
Fox New Digital has reached out The white house Regarding concerns about the proposal if it goes into effect but they have not received a response.
President Biden speaks in Washington, D.C., United States on Monday, December 16, 2024. The FDA confirmed to Fox Digital that as of January 3, the Tobacco Products Standard for the level of nicotine in certain tobacco products has completed regulatory review but that the proposed rule has not yet been finalized. (Samuel Corum/Girl/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Former President Barack Obama signed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act in 2009, which gave the Food and Drug Administration the authority to regulate tobacco products. In the years since, the agency has worked to lower nicotine levels, including in July 2017 under the Trump administration, when then-FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb announced that he would seek to require tobacco companies to significantly reduce nicotine in cigarettes in an attempt to help… Adults. Quit smoking.
In 2022, the US Food and Drug Administration under the Biden administration announced plans for a proposed rule that would lower nicotine levels so that they are less addictive or non-addictive.
“Reducing nicotine levels to minimally addictive or non-addictive levels would reduce the likelihood of future generations of young people becoming addicted to cigarettes and help more currently addicted smokers quit,” FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said at the time.
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Marianos told Fox News Digital that reducing nicotine levels in commonly purchased cigarettes and other tobacco products would open the door to illicit trafficking of tobacco products into the United States.
“This decision was shoved down the public's throat without an iota of thought and preparation. No one sat down Down with law enforcement“No one sat down with any of the doctors, no one sat down with any of the regulators to figure out, 'Hey, look, what are the unintended consequences of such a bad choice,' and that's what I'll call it, a bad choice,” Marianos said.
A woman lights a cigarette. (Photo by Justin Tallis/AFP)
He explained that Mexican cartels are well positioned to bring illegal tobacco across the border, as they do with substances like fentanyl that have devastated communities across the United States. While Chinese criminal organizations It has some of the best counterfeiting operations running from baby formula to cigarettes, and Russian organized crime groups have their feet in cities across the country, including tobacco shops and other stores that sell tobacco products.
Marianos said criminal groups would likely quickly master this proposal if it went into effect and thus swell their tobacco operations — which he says would be an economic boon for criminals.
Migrants attempt to cross into the United States from Mexico at the border on December 17, 2023 in Jacumba Hot Springs, California. (Photo by Nick Ut/Getty Images)
Americans who wanted to purchase cigarettes containing higher levels of nicotine would need to go through illicit channels to obtain them, similar to purchasing “loose” cigarettes on the streets of New York, exposing ordinary Americans to more criminal risks while also offering them cigarettes. Which are not regulated and originate from foreign countries.
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Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers have already warned that tobacco trafficking in the United States poses a serious national security threat and has already got its foot in the door.
Couple smoking cigarettes. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)
“In 2015, the State Department cited activity by terrorist groups and criminal networks that used tobacco smuggling operations to finance other crimes, including “money laundering, bulk cash smuggling, and trafficking in human beings, weapons, drugs, antiquities, diamonds, and counterfeit goods,” Senator Bell said. Cassidy, R-Los Angeles; Mark Warner, Democrat from Virginia; Marco Rubio, Republican from Florida; Bill Hagerty, Republican of Tennessee; And then Sin. Bob Casey, a Pennsylvania Democrat, wrote in a 2023 letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
“Recently, public reports have also noted these financial ties between Mexican transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) involved in drug and fentanyl trafficking, and tobacco smuggling activities. These Mexican TCOs pose a serious threat to the United States. National security and public health“.
In addition to the criminal impact on America and its population, lowering nicotine levels would also frustrate the stated mission of weaning smokers off cigarettes and instead lead to increased smoking, Marianos added.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is moving forward with a regulatory rule in the final days of the Biden administration that would effectively ban cigarettes currently on the market in favor of products with lower nicotine levels. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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“It's going to create more smoking. And I thought that's what we're trying to get away from, right? Smoking is bad. And I think we're trying to do everything we can to get away from that and make the country safer. Well, if you lower nicotine levels, people will smoke more.” “All you have to do is drive here in the capital and see the workers on their smoke break.” Productivity will even decline as people take more alley smoke breaks to get their nicotine fix.
The Biden administration previously tried to ban menthol cigarettes entirely, in what was described as an “important” part of President Biden's “Cancer Moonshot” initiative, but announced last year that it would abruptly postpone such regulations as the public denounced the move. A few groups claimed that the menthol ban unfairly targets minority communities, while others argued that the ban would open the floodgates to illicit menthol sales.
