In June, I called attention to the unscientific proposal by two FDA tobacco advisory committee members, Drs. Jack Henningfield and Neal Benowitz, to radically reduce nicotine in cigarettes in order to force smokers to quit and prevent children from starting to smoke (read my post here). They are now the co-authors of another thinly veiled call for reducing nicotine to “non-addictive levels” in cigarettes, just published in the journal Tobacco Control (abstract here).
Henningfield and Benowitz are joined by fellow committee member Dr. Dorothy Hatsukami, the National Cancer Institute’s Dr. Cathy Backinger (read about her previous pronouncements here), FDA staffer Dr. David Ashley, and Mitch Zeller, a lawyer. Zeller works for a consulting firm employed by GlaxoSmithKline, the pharmaceutical manufacturer that last week called on the FDA to ban dissolvable tobacco products (read about it here). According to Dr. Elizabeth Whelan of the American Council on Science and Health, “GSK is clearly trying to protect its own market…” by eliminating tobacco products that it perceives as competition with its medicinal nicotine products.” (For insights on medicinal nicotine’s dismal track record, see my previous blog post).
The Tobacco Control article is an urgent call for research that would inform policy decisions regarding reduced nicotine cigarettes. Here are the questions these “six leading tobacco research and policy experts” (as they describe themselves in their press release) want answered about reducing cigarette nicotine content:
"What is the nicotine threshold dose(s) for addiction…? What are the effects of reduced nicotine cigarettes on the brain in adult smokers and in adolescents…? What is the extent of compensatory smoking…and what interventions can be used to minimize compensatory smoking, such as making nicotine available through less hazardous delivery systems (e.g. nicotine replacement therapy)…? What are the effects of reduced nicotine cigarettes in subpopulations (consumers who smoke for self-medication purposes such as those with comorbidity or who are severely addicted)…and how can negative consequences be mitigated? What would be the public’s reaction…? How could we frame the message and educate the public…? What are the potential unintended consequences from reduced nicotine cigarettes, how can [the consequences] be determined and monitored, and what needs to be done to mitigate against negative consequences?"
In other words, these “experts” can’t even define a threshold dose for nicotine addiction, and they are clueless about the effects of radically reducing nicotine in cigarettes. Yet, their press release (here ) makes nicotine prohibition sound like the perfect solution. Dr. Hatsukami ignored all those important questions, proclaiming in the release that “Reducing the nicotine in cigarettes to a level that is non-addicting could have a profound impact on reducing death and disability related to cigarettes and improving overall public health.” It appears that she has already reached conclusions before the research is performed.
Lawyer Zeller was even more fanciful: “Imagine a world where the only cigarettes that kids could experiment with would neither create nor sustain addiction.”
Unfortunately, it doesn’t take an active imagination to appreciate the disaster that would result from radical reduction (prohibition) of nicotine in cigarettes. One need only look at the nation’s reaction to alcohol prohibition, as chronicled by Daniel Orient in his outstanding book, Last Call (description here).
In 1914, U.S. per capita beer consumption was 20 gallons. In anticipation of alcohol prohibition, launched in 1920 by the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, breweries produced an alcohol-free drink, informally called near beer. Six months into prohibition, sales of near beer plummeted, and brewers turned to a more attractive and profitable alternative: malt syrup, the key ingredient for making beer. It was sold in grocery stores across the nation, and it spawned a mini-industry offering filters, bottles, bottle stoppers, and most importantly, yeast. It is not a coincidence that California vineyards survived Prohibition in a similar manner. Millions of Americans legally consumed alcohol during Prohibition by making their own beer and wine.
The prohibitionists’ response to home brewing was to call for more prohibition. In 1925, Wayne B. Wheeler, a key prohibition architect (profiled here), asked one of his friends in Congress if “the time is ripe to prohibit the sale and distribution of these malt syrups and malt supplies.” Orient writes, “It wasn’t, nor would it ever be.”
Near beer, which tasted like real beer, didn’t sell precisely because it didn’t provide alcohol, an addictive drug with benefits. Today, neo-prohibitionists, with little research and a lot of imagination, are trying to sell Americans on near cigarettes that are devoid of addictive but rewarding nicotine.
Is the time ripe for such foolishness, especially when smokers have increasing access to vastly safer smokeless alternatives? It isn’t, nor will it ever be.
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