Nicotine, Tar, and CO Content

On June 17, 2010, the Washington Post printed a story titled "FDA should use its power to lower nicotine in cigarettes, former chief says" . Following is an excerpt: David A. Kessler, a former FDA commissioner, said Wednesday that the agency's efforts to date are laudable but "marginal" compared with what the agency has the legal authority to do -- reduce nicotine levels to the point where a smoker no longer craves cigarettes . "If you do this, you can save 200,000 to 300,000 lives a year," Kessler said. "Everything else pales in comparison. " The Washington Post story is referenced by an allgov.com post titled "Is It Time to Limit Nicotine Levels in Cigarettes?" . The first comment to this post begins as follows: We need to be extremely careful here. While the one year-old Family Smoking Prevention Act forbids the FDA from "requiring the reduction of nicotine yields of a tobacco product to zero," common sense screams th...

A google search of "low-tar cigarettes" results in numerous matches, the majority of which appear to be negative on their usefulness, saying that they are no less hazardous than regular-tar cigarettes. In fact, some of the matching articles suggest that switching to low-tar cigarettes halves the chance of quitting smoking. However, this conclusion is contradicted by some other studies such as this one which states the following: Smoking and health experts have been concerned that reducing the nicotine content of cigarettes would lead to smoking a greater number of cigarettes and therefore increased exposure to other tobacco smoke toxins, as is seen in smokers of the currently marketed low-nicotine yield cigarettes, Benowitz said. The new research on reduced-nicotine content cigarettes strongly counters that prediction. Another article , titled "Could FDA reduce nicotine levels in cigarettes?", states the following: Another strategy might be to reduce the harm fr...