A significant step forward, according to experts who talked to HeadlinesForever Digital, might be reversed by President Trump’s “nicotine freedom crusade” that rolled back rules from the Biden period concerning nicotine and tobacco products.
Prior to Trump’s inauguration, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) put up a “bold” regulation that “would make cigarettes and certain other combusted tobacco products minimally or nonaddictive by limiting the level of nicotine in those products.”
The FDA has said that their proposed regulation will limit the amount of nicotine in cigarettes and “certain other combusted tobacco products” to no more than 0.7 milligrams per gram of tobacco. According to the EPA, the reduced nicotine levels will “be low enough to no longer create or sustain addiction.”
Critics are hopeful that Trump would carry on his campaign for nicotine freedom and repeal the regulation, despite the FDA’s earlier claims that the measure “would not ban” cigarettes.
“The Biden legacy on tobacco policy is one of hamfisted regulations, crippling bureaucracy, and prohibition fueling massive criminal markets — from cigarettes to Chinese vapes,” Rich Marianos, former assistant director of the ATF, executive director of the Tobacco Law Enforcement Network, told HeadlinesForever Digital. Marianos also served as an ATF agent.
“President Trump can put the nail in the coffin of that failed era by killing this insane ban on cigarettes and focusing resources on vigilant enforcement.”
“Prohibitionist tobacco policy” punishes small businesses, according to Peter Brennan, Executive Director of the New England Convenience Store & Energy Marketers Association (NECSEM). He explained this by saying that small businesses see “taking sales out of our stores and pushing them into the streets and the illicit market.”
“Biden’s plan to ban all cigarettes is a real threat that is still hanging over our heads.” Brennan remarked. “We are hopeful that President Trump will help America’s convenience stores by putting a stop to this disastrous idea.”
After assuming office, Trump has moved swiftly to address issues related to nicotine. One of his first acts was to rescind a regulation that would have banned menthol cigarettes. This came after the Biden administration had stated its intention to implement the ban, following years of lobbying by anti-smoking groups.
A few months down the road, experts who talked with HeadlinesForever Digital lauded the removal of FDA Tobacco Director Brian King from his position. Critics had accused King of being a major player in the administration’s resistance to menthol bans and the “war on nicotine.”
An expert in Republican strategy who assisted in Trump’s 2024 election told HeadlinesForever Digital that since becoming office, Trump has been successful in his nicotine freedom fight, eliminating Biden’s ill-advised menthol prohibition and dismissing the FDA official responsible for it. “The logical next step is to officially repeal a Biden-era rule on banning low nicotine products, which will be the final blow to Biden’s war on nicotine.”
Breaking NewsIn order to get a response, Forever Digital contacted the FDA.
Some think that Vice President Kamala Harris’s and Joe Biden’s presidential campaigns were stunted by his so-called “war on nicotine” and the recent influx of illegal Chinese vapes into the market.
According to an insider who spoke with HeadlinesForever Digital, “removal of Biden’s disastrous rule that would effectively ban cigarettes” would be a major victory for Trump’s working-class constituency.