Biden Administration Continues War on Cigarettes to the Bitter End

Biden Administration Continues War on Cigarettes to the Bitter End

The Biden team has conducted several different domestic wars throughout its pathetic administration. Two examples are the War on Appliances and the War on American Energy.

And, unlike its foreign endeavors, these engagements have succeeded…enough to make life more complex and expensive for our citizens.

Biden has been conducting a War on Cigarettes that began early in his administration. At first, menthol cigarettes were in the crosshairs, with a plan to mandate eliminate them from the market. Then, the administration backed off on this proposal after it faced a backlash from Black communities, which are a key market for this type of smoke. That was in April, 2024.

Interestingly, once Biden abandoned the presidential race, the plans for the menthol cigarette ban were back on.

Back in 2022, Team Biden also began moving forward on an ambitious plan to mandate the elimination of nearly all nicotine in cigarettes, a policy that would upend the $95 billion U.S. cigarette industry.

Unlike the menthol cigarette proposal, this measure still appears on the table. Biden’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has just announced that the Tobacco Product Standard for Nicotine Level of Certain Tobacco Products has just completed its regulatory review process.

The standard continues the FDA’s control over cigarettes, which Obama initially established. From Fox News:

“The proposed rule, ‘Tobacco Product Standard for Nicotine Level of Certain Tobacco Products,’ is displaying in the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) ROCIS system as having completed regulatory review on January 3,” an FDA spokesman told Fox Digital.

“As the FDA has previously said, a proposed product standard to establish a maximum nicotine level to reduce the addictiveness of cigarettes and certain other combusted tobacco products, when finalized, is estimated to be among the most impactful population-level actions in the history of U.S. tobacco product regulation. At this time, the FDA cannot provide any further comment until it is published.”

…Former President Barack Obama signed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act in 2009, which granted the FDA the power 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 it would seek to require tobacco companies to drastically cut nicotine in cigarettes in an effort to help adult smokers quit.

Experts are already warning about the unintended consequences of these proposed rules. They assert that lowering nicotine levels could lead to increased illegal tobacco trafficking and potentially benefit organized crime.

“Biden’s ban is a gift with a bow and balloons to organized crime cartels with it, whether it’s cartels, Chinese organized crime, or Russian mafia,” Rich Marianos, a former assistant director of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, told Fox News.

“It’s going to keep America smoking, and it’s going to make the streets more violent,” Marianos said.

The Biden admin is working to effectively ban cigarettes in 11th hour proposal – a former ATF agent says this is a ‘gift’ to organized crime cartels. pic.twitter.com/GoloVHH4L5

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) January 7, 2025

There aren’t any imminent changes to nicotine level rules. The rule-making process is going to continue through the Trump administration, and it is not known what type of reception it will receive from the new team.

However, the virtue-signalling bureaucrats warn they will continue to push for these rules that they assure us will significantly impact the nation’s smoking habits.

The Office of Management and Budget’s approval process can take months. There will also be a public comment period, and the tobacco industry often sues the government to stop new regulations.

It’s also unclear what the FDA will do with such a proposal under President-elect Donald Trump. During his first term, the agency signaled that it wanted to limit nicotine, but the tobacco industry donated heavily to Republicans ahead of this year’s elections, and Trump’s pick for chief of staff worked as a tobacco lobbyist.

Robertson says her association wants this last-minute FDA effort to work.

“We’re hopeful, but we’ll be there if it doesn’t move forward, and we’ll continue to be there,” she said.

Hopefully, this time, Trump will be able to smoke out the Deep Staters before we start suffering even more unintended but foreseeable consequences from over-reaching regulations.

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