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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 levels of nicotine, which could end up boosting business for cartels operating in the black market, an expert tells Fox News Digital.
“Biden’s ban is a gift with a bow and balloons for organized crime cartels with him, be it the cartels, Chinese organized crime or the Russian mafia. “It will keep America smoking and it will make the streets more violent,” Rich Marianos, former deputy director of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and current president of the Enforcement Network, told Fox News. of the Tobacco Law. Digital of 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 level of nicotine to reduce the addictiveness of cigarettes and certain other burnt tobacco productsWhen completed, it is estimated to be among the most impactful population-level actions in the history of tobacco product regulation in the United States. “At this time, the FDA is unable to provide further comment until it is published.”
Fox New Digital contacted the white house about concerns about the proposal if it were to come into force but received no 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 Images)
Former President Barack Obama signed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control 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 News Digital.
“This decision is being thrown to the public without an ounce of thought and preparation. No one sat down down with law enforcementNobody sat down with any doctor, nobody sat down with any regulator to figure out, ‘Hey, look, what are 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 cross the border with illegal tobacco, as they do with substances like fentanyl that have devastated communities across the United States. while Chinese criminal organizations They have some of the best counterfeiting operations ranging 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 that sell 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 Hot Springs, California. (Photo by Nick Ut/Getty Images)
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 criminal 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 Images)
“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. Bill Cassidy, R-La.; Mark Warner, D-Va.; Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida; Bill 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 United States. national security and public health“.
Marianos added that in addition to the criminal effect it represents 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 an increase in 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 Images)
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“You’re going to create more smoking. And I thought that’s what we’re trying to get away from, right? Smoking is bad. I thought 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. That’s been proven. All you have to do is drive here in DC and see, you know, the workers on their smoke breaks,” he said, saying that they work. Productivity will even decline as people smoke more. He stops in alleys to get his nicotine fix.
The Biden administration previously attempted to ban menthol cigarettes entirely, in what was described as a “critical” piece of President Biden’s Cancer 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.
