--- title: "FDA Working to Remove the Stuff in Cigarettes That Feels Good" description: "A new FDA proposal would reduce the amount of feel-good nicotine in cigarettes to near-inconsequential levels." date: "2025-01-18" modified: "2025-01-18" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/fda-reduce-nicotine-cigarettes" categories: - "Developments" - "Health & Medicine" tags: - "cigarettes" - "nicotine" - "smoking" - "tobacco" --- # FDA Working to Remove the Stuff in Cigarettes That Feels Good ![A new FDA proposal would reduce the amount of feel-good nicotine in cigarettes to near-inconsequential levels.]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* Smoking cigarettes is extremely deadly; each year, the habit is [estimated to ]()[kill]() around 480,000 Americans. But it makes you feel good near-instantly, washing you over with a calming buzz that nothing else quite matches. It also [looks]() [cool]() — at least in the movies. Soon, though, the "cool" factor may be the only thing going for it. The Food and Drug Administration has proposed slashing the levels of nicotine — the drug that actually makes you feel good — in cigarettes so drastically that they'd no longer be able to get you hooked. "By reducing the nicotine level of cigarettes and certain other combusted tobacco products to a level low enough to no longer create or sustain addiction, the cycle of exposure to these toxic chemicals can be broken," Brian King, director of the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products, said during a press briefing, [per ]()[*NBC News*](). Today, cigarettes contain around [11.9 to 14.5 milligrams]() of nicotine on average, depending on the brand. The FDA's plan is to reduce that to just 0.7 milligrams. Basically, [as is *The Atlantic's* take](), it'd ban cigarettes in all but name. The substance on its own may not be responsible for most of smoking's harmful effects — that comes from burning tobacco — but it's incredibly addictive. It's why smoking is so easy to pick up, and so hard to quit. "It's the tar and everything around the nicotine that poses the greatest risk to people's health," former acting CDC director Richard Besser told *NBC*. "But nicotine is what hooks you." By curbing addiction, the FDA [argues in its proposal](), you curb deaths. According to the agency's estimates, capping nicotine levels at 0.7 milligrams per gram of tobacco — the amount that each cigarette contains — would prevent 1.8 million tobacco-related deaths by 2060, and 4.3 million by the end of the century. The cap would also apply to other products including cigarette tobacco, roll-your-own tobacco, most cigars, and pipe tobacco, the FDA said. It would not, however, affect vapes, nicotine pouches — like the increasingly popular Zyns — [non-combusted cigarettes](), waterpipe tobacco for hookahs and the like, smokeless tobacco products like snus and dip, and "[premium cigars]()." There's no guarantee, though, that the proposal will be passed into law, in its current form or at all. It'll be down to the incoming Trump administration to make the decision in September. Considering that the FDA first announced its intent for the proposal during Trump's first term in office, the president-elect's campaign promise to "[Make America Healthy Again]()" ([however sincere](), as there's also [talk of gutting the FDA]()) there's at least an outside chance of it happening. "If there's a goal to make America healthy again, I can't imagine anything more important to get done than this," said FDA commissioner Robert Califf, per *NBC*, We're sure that in the meantime, though, the tobacco industry will do everything to make these plans go up in smoke. **More on nicotine:** *[Teens Who Vape Show Higher Levels of Uranium and Lead, Scientists Find]()* ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()